Icarus
by rednightmare
Summary: You must learn to run before you can fly. Anders & Justice revisioned.
1. Boots

**_Mission Statement - SHORT: Icarus_ will focus on developing and, if you feel the same way I do, rectifying my favorite mage in combat boots. **

_**Mission Statement - FULL**_**: With respect to BioWare, I found the idea of Vengeance unfulfilling in the way of the deus ex machina. **** Rather than an instant corruption, I'd have liked to see Anders and Justice mature together, a combative but gradual symbiosis between two people (?) who have extremely different ideologies but want the same thing.**

**Ultimately: I would've really enjoyed getting to watch Anders grow up on his own, without the easier explanation of a demon warping him. Right there – that's the purpose of this fic. **

**_For Reference_: I will be (briefly) using a more matured Warden Annie-Lynn Brosca from **_**Cake**_** and a pushy female Hawke. Significant deviations from canon will take place, but this story is not a proper AU; it follows the overarching plot of DA2.  
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**_Art!_: **pickledpoopers **and **Lesatho** have drawn some absolutely stunning pieces related to _Icarus_. Go check out their homepages; they are both extremely talented artists, and have been of great help bringing Cala Hawke to life. Links located in my profile.**

* * *

**ICARUS**

Never regret thy fall,  
O Icarus of the fearless flight  
For the greatest tragedy of them all  
Is never to feel the burning light.

_- Oscar Wilde_

* * *

**Boots**

Anders's boots were getting tired.

His feet and the mage himself were fine; sure, slogging through Fereldan moorland hadn't been a personal favorite, and clambering over these rocky Sundermount crags wasn't exactly therapeutic for his knees, but they held together. The caps were beginning to pop in sickly, awkward intervals that made him grimace. His calves hardened and wrenched themselves out of shape, overtaxed. His poor ankles had been sprained _so_ many times – twisted on so many rude logs, tactless rocks, unstable riverbed slabs, pebbled mountain passes – that they didn't even really feel it, anymore. Well, all right. Not entirely true. Most evenings he could trudge on, though, gingerly favoring the injured leg, alternating between limping and leaning against his staff-turned-walking-stick. Funny, that. For all the fireballs he regularly slung and volts that coursed beneath his blunted nails, Anders never meted out a very high pain tolerance. He liked to think this extra oomph was Justice's doing – a little righteous contribution to the team.

Not even a temperamental Fade spirit could fix the apostate's boots, though. There were deep cracks in the soles from heated limestone that made up Kirkwall's midday docks. Wounded Coast sand jammed into them. Swamp water attrition smoothed down the treads. They smelled oddly of salt, like sea shells cleaned and sat upon a shelf – brine and deck oil rubbed into the black leather, remnants of a hungry voyage from Amaranthine. Eyelets tugged stitches. Laces fell apart and were replaced so many times he'd lost count. Foundations weakened until a sharp forward-kick might break his toes rather than a cocky mugger's pelvis. The necks dethreaded, grey pant legs loosening over their edges. He'd tied a length of cloth around one to hold it together.

It was a damn shame. These were a hardy set of troopers, broken in just how he liked – worn to that perfect rakish, clever _thud_ (because squeaking fugitives generally proved to be poor fugitives). You couldn't just shimmy up to any old town market leathersmith and find yourself a pair like this. Not ones you could actually move in, at any rate. Unfortunate that it always seemed to be plates or stockings. And Anders, contrary to popular – or at least Oghren – belief, did not like the insignificant feeling of _prancy_ boots on his feet. He preferred something a little more substantial, with a little more weight. The mage smiled coyly as a memory of stout Warden Brosca punching Ser Rylock in the groin worked itself across his mind. _'A nice in-between,'_ he decided. Was there ever anything better than that?

The apostate ambled slowly down this slippery, beaten trail of forest, enjoying the mild climate, careful not to cramp his tender ankle. He was in no hurry today. It was rare Anders did not feel the need to rush in some form, but rumors of the strange healer's allegiance with Ferelden's Greys kept Meredith's overeager recruits well enough away from his doorstep – at least for the time being. Better not to think about it right now, though. It was not as if he had any resources to combat them in his current state, dodging Order responsibilities and Gallows guillotines in tandem… whatever those drooling holy-rollers might think. Besides, the evening was so damned pleasant. Sky darkened from bright afternoon to a calmer sapphire color, tendrils of sunlight glazing the oyster bluffs that arced upwards, rust orange warming the northern moss. This grassy path wound upwards, lined by budding white dogwood and rainwater puddles. It smelled like evergreens. It was nice, really. Best to just go about his merry ol' way.

His merry way _picking plants_, of all the things that might've made that red-beard Orzammar drunk chortle. Ah, yes. Merry plant-picking! It would've been a tad merrier had he _not_ been forced to hike miles into Dalish zones on a bad foot – but you win some and you lose some, as Brosca always said when Vigil's soldiers suffered darkspawn defeat, picking her teeth with a skinning knife. No avoiding it, though. He needed fresh polk for a topical anti-inflammatory cream that, for some 'mysterious' reason, was always in high Lowtown demand. The only place to find this certain edible leaf happened to be deep in these shrubland foothills, sadly. What a bother; elf paths left a lot to be desired, full of menacing boulders just waiting to trip up an innocent mage. Kirkwall's underbelly really needed that ointment, though. Blooming wonder they'd managed to survive this long without his very affordable merchandise.

"So affordable, it's free!" Anders blustered for no one, addressing a gnarled lilac bush. There was a fox squirrel nested inside, chewing on a walnut shell. It took one steady look at him and bolted. "Come on down today and pick up a bottle of _Doctor Anders's Miracle Salve: For Every – And We Do Mean _Every_ – Itch!_" (Maker's teeth, what a slogan. He should've gone into the market business, penning catchy jingles for too-rich merchant princes – sod all this druidic berry-hunting and wandering through woods. _'Would've made a fortune, most like. And now here I am: ridden by poverty. But! I'm free to shoot lightening at fools whenever I please, so… yes. Fair trade-off.'_)

Good thing the Dalish clans didn't bother skulking after him anymore. Sneaky, those elves in their sock-feet – much more so than clanging, clattering templar – but this particular mage loathed being watched with a special fervor. Oh, of course. They had made themselves quite imposing that uncomfortable first time the dashing apostate had run afoul of them, sure enough. Longbow tips hoisted in his face, arrowheads teeming; menacing threats about bumbling shemlen spitted on ironwood pikes; halla horn spears adorning their shields… the whole warm tribesman regalia. It was a frightening experience, but Anders played his "harmless healer gathering medicinal herbs" card. (Did a card really count as 'played' if it was true, though? No matter. They left the mage alone after that, figuring him to be a crazy – but docile – human hermit.)

"Why is it that people always seem to figure I'm bonkers? Is it the talking to myself, do you think?" he asked a particularly amiable-looking daffodil. The flower had no answers for him, but a breeze rippled through his stitched yellow coat, and made its petals gave an appropriate little shrug.

Anders quite liked talking to himself, actually. He developed a habit of it by cramming for alchemical exams as a Tower apprentice, and he'd done it by necessity in that awful place's isolation cage, where the sound of his own voice and Mr. Wiggums's purring body were the only proofs of reality. Andraste, poor Mr. Wiggums… all patchy, white fur sloughing off into his sweaty hand, bald spots yawning wide behind those mite-deaf ears. The apostate used to carry out detailed philosophical conversations with that mouser. He'd rant, tell off-color jokes, sob occasionally, conspire escape – once, during a low point, Anders had genuinely tried to talk the decrepit snowshoe into stealing keys for him. Wiggums would simply blink, give a garrulous meow, and rub a clover-leaf mouth along one of his shackles.

And – whatever his mental state – Anders would "aww," pick him up, and press his face into that stinking old tom.

The mage scrubbed a hand over his sharp, rough chin, feeling the stubble collecting there. "Rest in peace, Mr. Wiggums, you unhygienic little beast. May you smell better wherever you are," he declared to Sundermount's early evening sky, a dash of melodrama to make him feel better, grinning and sweeping one hand towards the cloudless stretch of powder-blue. Yes, chatting to oneself was a tricky practice to break. Just as well, though; it kept a portion of undesirables from nabbing at his coin purse. Warded off those human-hating elf teenagers, anyway. What a relief. He would've felt badly about torching Thedas's few surviving natives, clinging resolutely to their little clutches of forest… and besides that, the questing spirit currently possessing him might've been powerful displeased. Crusted Dalish husks were definitely a step away from their mission of helping the unfortunates in Kirkwall.

'_Oh, no, da'len – don't throw rocks at the nutty abomination – he might whack you a good one and turn us all into newts!' _

Heh. Heh-heh.

As usual, the routine moment of silliness was chased by a remote, impatient feeling of disapproval – a weary sigh trickling up from somewhere deep within his gut. No surprise. Justice always had an abysmal sense of humor. Anders directed a few insults inwards, hoping they'd scratch the metal surface that was his Fade parasite. He wasn't sure if this had any real effect. He never was. Rather than wonder about it, the apostate smoothed his feathered shoulders and stooped down to pull a fistful of wild spinach. (Good for padding restoration potions. Also good in salads.) He gathered a sloppy bunch, shook off the dirt as best he could, and bound them into a bushel, cutting excess twine with his teeth. He pulled a hank of strawlike hair away from his ears and poked the stragglers messily back into their rope. There was still room between the ginseng and tubers for a few willow bark strips; true, you could buy dried flakes in the marketplace for a decent price, but fresh produce was much higher quality. And living trees had added benefits: green shavings, cork twigs, and sweet sap that masked the rancid flavor of elfroot tonic. Plus, they were the best smell in the entire world.

Anders had mentioned that to Justice once, years ago, as they stumbled upon a magnificent elm outside Amaranthine. Fir needles clustered its branches, shedding and healthy. Ants crawled along the spine. Sparrows preened around leafy, thorned cones. A perfect tree, right at the edge of cobblestone and cultivated farmland – it inspired their group runaway with a diehard sense of liberty. _"Ah, take a breath of that! Smells like wilderness!"_ he'd said, taking a deep whiff, puffing up both lungs to their spilling point.

_"Smells like cow shit where I'm standing,"_ Brosca had harped by his waist, black pigtails amuck, knocking the caked field mud off her boots. Sigrun giggled.

_"Maybe you're just too short,"_ Anders suggested, earring blinking snobbily at her. _"Smells wonderful up here. Smells like freedom!"_ It had tumbled right out of his mouth. The mage wasn't even really sure what he'd been thinking, but there it was.

Their dwarves flashed him a bizarre, scrunched, ridiculous look. Then they trundled away, unaffected – a girlish, inglorious race to the city gates. He had been left standing stupidly between a tree and a trapped spirit – a dropped punch-line.

And, unlikely as it seemed… the apostate thought Justice had smiled at him.

Sometimes he missed old Justice. Well – not missed _him_, per say; it was challenging to yearn for an entity that had grafted itself onto your brain – but Anders did miss talking to the idealistic Fade Ser. He sensed what the being's echo compelled him to do through vague emotions, images, memories stirred up and altered. These messages could be subtle. Sometimes they were so subtle that the mage had a hell of a time deciphering his own beliefs from Justice's drive to _change_. This was particularly confusing whenever Anders thought about his Circle brethren, locked in that gods-awful circus tower; his mind tore into itself, a tumult of anger and fear and halved desires to _burn oppression down and do it fast_. Mind you, this apostate always said he was rather gutsy when it came to stuffing fireworks down templar suits… but all these visions of smoking cities, raining ash, heavy explosives and such made him just a wee bit uneasy. Justice surely meant well. Anders generally thought so, anyway. But the man was a touch on the loony side.

At least he hoped that was Justice.

Sifting himself from the spirit was becoming more and more like trying to peel his skin away from the bones beneath. It was all very frustrating, really. Anders wished for bygone days, when separating Justice was easy as lurching up and stomping indignantly someplace else. He'd done it several times when the ghostly crusader started harping "liberty!" after Ser Pounce-a-Lot. Andraste's knickers. Even with the damned blowhard fused into him, believing that encounter actually took place was still a challenge. Once, he'd trotted towards his Keep room to find Justice kicking wide the door and belting out: _"Run, gentle knightling! You need no longer serve the magister!" _Pounce had chirped curiously and wrapped himself around one menacing black sabaton. What an old tin can.

"Yes, you heard me. You're an old tin can," Anders mumbled, reaching up to boost himself into a low-hanging horse chestnut limb, shaking conkers to the ground. He leapt down and snatched them up. _'Into the bundle you go,'_ the mage thought, hoping this would be sufficient enough for a rheumatism mixture. His boots gave an uneasy creak.

Telekinesis would've been easier, of course, but Anders had a slight aversion to unnecessary magic. Perhaps that wasn't as accurate as saying he simply liked a good clamber every once and while. It gave him an opportunity to think about foot placing, hand grips, sturdy eaves – not mana flow. You needed to salvage happiness from basic fun wherever you could in this age; that was one principle he and Brosca agreed upon. Not to mention this was excellent practice for when slavering mabari chased him up an oak. Yes, it had happened. Several times. Call the mage a pessimist if you must, but he was fairly sure it would happen again. Dogs and Anders never got along well. Ser Carroll, "Queen of Antiva," kept a big, burly mutt he fed raw steak and siced on lippy apprentices, in fact… a slobbering bully of a creature, identical to his master, who'd lunge to shred robes but never drew blood.

Anders had been a _very_ lippy apprentice.

He remembered thunking down beside the company fire pit one evening outside Wending Wood, sulking because he'd been treed yet again – this time by giant spiders. They closed too swiftly for the mage to rebound with an ice cone; one moment his hands had been pulsing with red energy, then next they'd been stuck with hair from the massive arachnid pouncing over him. Yes, indeed – Anders sounded the retreat. (Sounded it quite like a screaming schoolgirl, even.) Fortunately for the lot of them, Justice had stomped the offending creatures into bubbling, venomous paste before too long. The apostate dropped out of his safety birch in a torrent of laughter. Brosca herself had howled and slapped his thigh. He'd been still rubbing out the tiny handprint when she'd darted off to collect firewood, tossing himself heavily on a log, shooting an unenthused glare at their staid spirit companion. Justice was sitting upon a rock with his bastard sword rooted neatly into the ground. He said nothing. Anders glared harder.

_"You even think about making a cat joke in there, and I swear I will broil you alive."_

_"Cat? No. Cats imply grace. You are an awkward creature. You remind me of a bird," _Justice had concluded, eyeing Anders suspiciously thought his helmet slat, in that critical sidelong way he always analyzed the mage.

It was impossible to let that one slide, of course – no matter how much the announcement honestly perplexed him. _"You think I'm majestic?"_ the man tried, cocking his head, a flutter of mockery. _"That I sing well? That I have a large beak, is that it? Or maybe-!"_ A snort; a snicker into his palm. _"Maybe it's because I soar?"_

The spirit frowned – or, at least, Anders figured it did – Ser Kristoff's withered face twisting inside the massive heaume. Perhaps that 'beak' jibe had been in bad taste, because his nose had broken off last week. No lie… snapped clean off, popped firmly by a bandit's shield, and landed in the courtyard grass. He always wore the helmet now. Justice frightened people since Blackmarsh had grappled him into their world, blue ether in a dead thing, an intangible booming voice that resonated in your chest cavity. But his ferocity now swung towards the macabre. He began falling apart, mortal body unstitching. The mage did what he could to eliminate that spoiled reek of rigored flesh, but there was no healing dead meat; it hung off his ribcage in loose sacks. The tissue dried away around his eyes, leaving horrifying, striking whites that bulged from their sockets. You could still see them, if you squinted hard enough. They shone light through the helm's dark face.

Justice turned his head to look full at him – blunt, non-condemning fact. _"Not yet, no."_

He did not have long to dwell between worlds, and it made Anders profoundly, dismally sad. The renegade mage admired his backbone – that fearless, dedicated absolutism – more than he would ever admit. Odds did not factor into his concerns; ideals were ultimate and uncompromising. Justice never ran.

_"You are exceptionally _weird_ for a spirit,"_ Anders said, because he refused to give that trumpeting judge the satisfaction of inspiring him.

It was obvious why a paragon of equality would be concerned with the Circle's plight. But he was never quite sure what Justice saw in him personally. Perhaps the renegade mage was an interesting disappointment to a creature who understood only the utmost resolve; perhaps he saw character flaws rife with potential, appreciated Anders' breakneck need for individuality, detected a kindredness between them that deserved protection. Or maybe he was only a useful vessel with which to spur another oppressed people to revolution. Who knew? Did it truly matter? There was no undoing a possession; no scholar had developed a cure for abomination. Did he qualify as a proper abomination? No term yet existed for their dual mutation of human and benevolent being. "Corruption?" Anders did not feel corrupt. Justice had treated him all right so far.

Well. He didn't have any tumors bulbing out of his back or melting facial skin, anyway.

It was getting late. Indigo crept into the fringes of sky, spilt ink, the sinking sun peering enviously at a rising white moon. He held up a hand – engulfed it with flame. Fire spells tended to make his nerve endings tingle, an uncomfortable layer of heat. This mild cantrip was tolerable, however. Anders clasped five burning fingers decisively around the halberd-like barb of his quarterstaff, transferring the power, holding a match to tinder. It took, making the iron glow. Light spread in a torchlike globe, flushing up tree trunks and grabbing the curiosities of fireflies. High time to weave back down the sloped terrain surrounding Sundermount and head home, he thought. There wasn't a great deal of danger here to a seasoned traveler, of course – not beyond the occasional jackrabbit or rambling weasel – but his clinic had a bed. _'A hard, creaky bed… but still a bed.' _It seemed especially inviting now that his ankle had begun to sting in earnest. Anders had slept in enough dirt patches to easily serve him three or four lifetimes; Justice made his muscle tougher, extended his stamina, but he couldn't make matted brush piles feel like pillows.

He hopped a puddle onto his uninjured leg, sweeping the crackling stave through a line of tall weeds, clearing any snakes. Snakes were annoying. No other way to put it. After numerous grabs for ingredients that instead upturned an irate copperhead or pit viper, this city-dwelling healer had finally learned his lesson. He checked before he reached, now. Dying bloated and frothing from asp poison was pretty useless. Rushing in blind had to be saved for very special occasions.

His boots were wearing down, after all – soles sticking to the planes of his feet – and it was uncertain how many miles they had left to run.

Before Justice, Anders had always run away. He joked about those decades spent fleeing templar ambitions, but every time the mage ran – every latch sprung, every galleon jumped, every provisions box crunched into – he was afraid _this_ would be the last escape, his great finale flight. Every time the chapel-children caught him, Anders was sure that _this_ was it; they were really going to Tranquil him; surely he wasn't worth hunting across nations simply to drag home in handcuffs. Every time he was shut away – thrown into a cell by a gold scruff, slammed into an isolation tower, sealed behind a warded metal door that siphoned out the daylight – he thought: "That's it, I'm finished, I can't survive this again," frantic tightness that shuddered through his chest and quickly crumbled to: "I'm choking, I can't breathe, I'm going to die!" The chamber would go dark – it was always so cruelly, inhumanly dark – and he would pace and pull his hair and hyperventilate until panic collapsed him. He was always so calm when they rounded him up in a glade or a town wharf, laughing at their hunters' slowness, stupidly brave. And yet, every time they began the long, excruciating haul up these spiral stairs, all that runner's pride would disintegrate. Hadley would cart the hysterical apostate and Anders would struggle, squirm, claw his way back towards the waning light, pleading and screaming at the templar not to do this to him. _Not again, not again – don't do this! Kill me! Don't lock me away!_

But for all that, he always found a rusty bar, a rotten tether, a sympathetic guardian – a way out.

"_Stick wi' me, you bleedin' pole-twirler," _Brosca had grunted out when the templars began to sniff around Vigil's Keep, smacking her tongue at him_. "I'll keep your arse outta' Andraste's randy ickle fingers. No trouble. Nice havin' you around." _She grinned, a toothy little wolverine, when he'd asked why. _"Matter to ya'?"_ Annie'd wondered. Anders blinked in a mix of amazement and mild disgust when she kicked out a heel and leant back, head clanking into the chair, chewing a tobacco leaf in one pudgy red cheek. Her coarse ebony hair, prematurely silver at both temples, curled around ears that blushed permanently. _"I know what it's like to have nobody watching your backside, mage. Nothing good about it. Can't help how we're born. Aye, no. 'Sides. I like you. Kinn'a remind me of this blond I used to run with." _

And she winked at him, a little joke all to herself.

Anders had to point out that Warden Brosca was quite all right. For such a short person.

The man had thought of her occasionally after he abandoned their Order. He thought of her words to him upon that precipice, Waking Sea wind tearing at his back, forest shooting up as armies of black watchmen beyond Ser Rylock's bitter green eyes. There were no Ferelden Grey between them; they had been left in that charred flagstone Keep, a wrecked token of his cowardice. No protective balustrades. No Annie-Lynn. No Justice – Kristoff's mortal flesh having only weeks ago sifted into ash, burnt away at a funeral pyre, his lyrium ring bundled in a cloth satchel and tucked inside the young apostate's pocket. No loyal soldiers with heavy pauldrons and ridiculous upper-body strength. There had been only the chill of late evening and the promise of rain in charcoal thunderheads. His staff had been splintered, his escape routes blocked, his path dropping off into an eighty-meter plunge. A magical dead zone – the templar's numb aura weighting his fingertips down. Pitch waves smashed the rocky coast yards below. He stood staring at her, staggered, bedraggled, pupils coal-black mineshafts. It had been his final showdown; the last time Anders would ever dare bore down upon his Circle masters as a prisoner.

He had looked at her – back to a falling death – and said, with clarity that startled him: _"I will _never_ go back. I will never go back to that place."_

_"Irrelevant. You have no choice in the matter, mage. This is the end of your insanity; there is nowhere left to run."_ Rylock's voice was metal; it shivered the tree leaves, raking through this frigid wind.

Anders breathed. He licked his lips. He tasted brine and pines and the overpowering rosewater perfume on her cape. He noticed the cross emblazoned there. He looked at the cuffs upon his wrists – silver, heroic, eagles burned into the plate. Griffons.

He pulled a knife out of his coat. _"Then come and get me, Chantry bitch."_

She drew her sword.

It had been his last hurrah. Or so he thought, at any rate.

He stuck the blade into her cheek when she rushed him, pavise swinging like a battering ram, breaking four of his ribs. Blood flung itself airborne. Anders almost believed it'd be blue, but it was red – bright, gushing red that splattered across his neckline. Rylock roared. The handle hummed there, rooted into her gums. She tore it out, whipped it aside, faced down the apostate where he lay with scarlet spilling through her teeth. The tang of her own blood rinsed clean whatever notions this tracker had of capturing him alive.

Anders fought to inhale, gasping – thought his lungs were crushed. His fingers sunk into grit and sand. He tried to stand. He did. The right hemisphere of his body was vibrating like a hammered bell; he searched for something to defend himself with, brown eyes bleary, and found nothing but sticks that would smash uselessly against her cuirass. The nullified ground pulled at his soul, templar sanctification draining all mana – down veins, through shoe soles, drinking it into the tree roots. His head was ringing. He thought someone called his name, but when the mage glimpsed towards those ebon trees, they were alone.

_Anders._

Ser Rylock, skin hanging from her gash, hefted the longblade. Blood gnarled brown curls. She ran at his left flank, a snarling hurlock. Dust swirled around templar greaves. He could hear her boots pound the deadened earth.

He refused to perish like this.

_Are you ready to die for your freedom, mage?_

Anders swallowed. There were demon whispers pushing at the edge of his mind, a crusader hurling herself at him; he shut them out. Time slowed. His vambraces caught the scarce light and cast it upward, glittering. Thunder rumbled somewhere far over the dark wave crests. He dug both boots into the rock.

Not ever again.

He jumped. He threw himself backwards over the ledge, out of her magic barrier, away from the snakelike temptations of a Fade monster – all gritted teeth and hate stronger than his survival instinct. He hurled a fireball as the seawater reached out beneath him, screaming. He watched it sear Rylock's face from her wicked skull and pummel the knight's body far into the thick and murky elms.

He fell.

He was tumbling through the air, graceless. Wind ripped through his hair and clothes and it deafened him. Salt burnt. Cold oxygen blasted down his throat too hard to breathe. He had no weight or sense of time. His hands, flattening the air, looked far away. The grey sky engulfed him. The seacliff's fangs gnashed. The black ocean yawned wide to gobble him up.

He closed his eyes and he listened.

* * *

_Anders, you know me._

Justice. Justice, is that you?

_I have been following you._

Where are you? How can you be here? I can't… I can't…

_You are meant to be more than you are, mage. You have a purpose. _

Am I dead?

_No. Not now._

This doesn't make sense. I wasn't dreaming. Where are we, Justice? It doesn't feel like the Fade…

_This is a secret place – a safe pocket in your soul. Time is relative here. Do not waste your energies pondering it, human; these things are the concern of spirits, not those like you. Be content in the knowledge that I have contacted you in this moment. Let us speak. And when we are through, you may make a decision. We will face what come next afterwards._

You can't leave it at that. Please. Weeks ago, I… watched you die. They burned you, the Wardens – Ser Kristoff's body, I mean. Armor and all… liquefied everything. Seneschal Varel was afraid your remains might be dangerous. They said it didn't matter; you weren't there, anymore. Brosca didn't like it. We tried to save your blade, at least, but he would have none of that. It was more important to protect the soldiers from demonic influences; that was the call.

I'm sorry, Justice. I told them you weren't a demon, but no one cared. They melted your helm. They wanted to destroy your ring, too, so I stole it from them when I left. I thought you'd want it… you know. Kept.

_I am aware; that is how I found you. No apologies are required._

Why is this happening?

_I would like to help you. I would like to help you see your purpose before mortality ends it. If I speak to you here – if were to ask you some questions – will you give thought to what I say?_

I can't see it making much difference now, Justice. But yes. You know I will.

_Very well._

_I have spent much time in the company of mortals as of late, mage. I have observed closely, so I might understand the appeal your world holds to my enemies – and I have tested several theories, in order to pass judgment on your kind._

_It is because of this that I feel the need to make something known to you, Anders the Apostate. Do you recall when we once discussed the plight of your fellow mages? – why you had done nothing to aid them, despite the intensity of your resent. _

I do recall that, yes.

_You called it slavery. And yet you told me that you did not believe the power to _change_ belonged to you. The proposition of undoing the state of so many peoples intimidated – it felt too large. I was severely disappointed in you. _

That's an understatement. You called me a coward.

_Yes. Shamelessness about your cowardice angered me more than the cowardice, itself. But I have since rethought you. I do not think you comprehend your potential, nor your position in this life. And I do not think you appreciate that there is a difference between cowardice and fear._

Isn't there? Cowardice is just the expression of fear. I still can't see how it matters-

_Of all the beings I have met in my time here, you have the strongest understanding of what Right is. Your apathy is not the product of greed, malice or uncaring. You use laziness as an excuse to avoid becoming relevant. That does not refute my claims, however; there is nothing cripplingly weak about you, Anders. There is nothing stopping you, I think, from fulfilling your purpose save yourself._

_Mage, you are not the coward you believe yourself to be. You fear. You fear what it might mean to become something greater. You do not fear the danger of single actions, or what harm they may bring upon you; what you fear is the broader consequences of them, should your life ever carry weight. You fear failing others. Your fear is what has kept you alive. _

_Will you tell me, Anders, if you are afraid now?_

I'm not.

_Can you explain why?_

No. Wait. Yes. Yes, I can try.

I didn't want to jump, Justice. I don't want to die, really. But I did it – I did it because I have had enough. I'd rather die than go back to that life. I am afraid of what… comes after this. But I am so much more afraid of being locked away again. It's like being colorblind all your life and then waking up to a sunrise. Would you let them take that back? I can't.

_Why did you leave the Wardens?_

Because they were suffocating me. What do you want me to explain? I don't belong there, Justice. I never did.

_Have you considered that perhaps you were never meant to follow?_

I don't understand.

_I have come to make you an offer, mage. _

What are you suggesting?

_This is a pointless death. Allow me to spare you from it._

How?

_The same way that any Fade creature walks this plane – an implicit contract between spirit and host. Invite me to assist you, and I will._

You want to possess me.

_Know that I will respect your decision in this. But choose wisely. Refuse, and I will leave you to this end you've chosen for yourself. Permit me, and I will aid you. I will be your shield and your weapon. I will see you to your purpose, Anders. _

Will you stop saying that? I don't believe in "purpose." Neither should you. Especially not you; you're always telling us to _be_ change, like it's everyone's choice where they stand. You think "purpose" allows for that? All that word means is that you think some silent god has this grand scheme for all things, and we're all powerless to-

_You deliberately misunderstand me. But I know you hear what I have to say._

Can I believe what you say? You've lost your hold here. You claim the Fade is your home, that you aren't prey to the selfishness of your cousins – but here you are, following me? What should a mage think of 'offers' like this? What if you're desperate to set yourself back in this world? You say these things so I'll listen. You're not under any vows to aid me; you only want to use me for your own-

_I will not lie to you. Your world is beautiful. I would very much like to stay. But that does not mean I have lied. Those like me never need or abide by a lie. Do not compare me to a demon, mage. You only embarrass yourself._

Justice. Is this forever?

_It is until your death. _

People won't see any difference. You know that, don't you? You will make me a maleficar.

_You have never much cared what the templars believe. With me, you will have the courage to care not at all._

_Are you curious to know what it is like not to be afraid?_

I would be an abomination.

_You would be a free man._

_Do you trust me, mage?_

Yes. I do trust you.

_Then let it be._

All right. All right. Yes. Fine. Yes.

_This is your permission?_

It is. I agree.

_Very well. You may open your eyes, Anders. See._

* * *

He woke up washed into a sandstone cove, sopping, seaweed and a fisherman's lost marlin net snarled around his leg. His right shin and left foot were horribly broken. Blood dried around his mouth and swollen eyes. The whole side of his torso where Rylock's shield hit had morphed the sickly cranberry-purple of blood blisters. All five nails on one hand were missing, replaced by bloody stubs. He couldn't swallow. He couldn't breathe without pain prickling against his lungs.

But he was alive. And his raw fingers radiated a soft, blue glow.

When he touched things, they healed.

His snapped tibia, cracked ribs, crushed toes. An unconscious Dalish scout Anders stumbled upon when he finally found the strength to leave that damp, rocky cave; and the elf's bleating halla, hoof smashed in a hunter's bear trap. An Imperial Highway patrolman with a rogue's arrow throbbing in her gangrened calf. An Amaranthine girl with a wasting cancer. A dock worker with a knife in his throat. Three escaped slaves wandering outside their master's galleon. A good quarter of the Denerim alienage. A brave guard whose eyes melted shut in a tenement fire. About two-dozen feral cats brained by carriage wheels. A boy five hours dead.

He'd never advertised or consciously sought ailing patients and wounded victims – but they always seemed to crop up, tripping the mage as he tried to run, stumbling blocks in his road.

Now, in Kirkwall – after so many miles crossed – his boots began falling apart. Justice thought it was a sign.

So, against all those twinges of instinct that needled Anders to _keep moving_… he'd ended up renting an old warehouse from some side-a-ways Darktown contractor and opening this damn clinic. He brewed medicine for pauper elves too poor to pay bills. He patched up unskilled Ferelden refugees who'd moronically sold themselves as mercenary fodder. He healed fugitives; outlaws hiding in this bronze city's underbelly; citizens evicted from their homes because taxes surged too high; aged warriors now too old to find work; frightened immigrants, hindered by language barriers; impoverished drunkards; lepers; lyrium-addled ex-templars whom, forgotten and brain-dead, withered away as slums rats; and the occasional Gallows runaway who had nowhere else to turn. Justice rarely had compliments for his host, but there was a placidness from the spirit when Anders obeyed; he itched less when the mage was doing something worthy of a noble spirit.

This all came much later, though. When the sodden apostate first awoke on that rock-strewn shore, he'd mended himself, and ran.

It had been months since Justice spoke to him again after that fall into the Waking Sea. Only those fuzzy urges and thoughts that didn't seem natural told Anders his survival hadn't been a fluke. There were times the man feared their joining failed – that he'd obliterated the spirit somehow, gulped and destroyed. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Or maybe he was honestly concerned…either way, it didn't change the facts. Justice had been sitting back and watching what his carrier would do with this new power. He was content to quietly pick through the workings of Anders's mind for many weeks; his various guilts and bare nerves were interesting. Acts of charity pleased the knight, his approval evidencing itself as a strange new pride the mage took in helping others. But the running did not stop. Justice's dissatisfaction made his companion's stomach hurt, but one could not reform a flight animal into a revolutionary within precious few days.

So there were caravan trains, stolen horses, ships, stowaway brigs, a long line of campfires and dirt-cheap hotel rooms.

Until one day, he _had_ simply stopped.

It was in Sundermount – not far from where he strolled now, pockets full of sage – standing with his back to the forest's lip. It was last year, in the final weeks of a wet spring. It was the same day he'd hopped onto Kirkwall's harbor for the first time, belongings crammed into a shabby backpack, each step swaying uneasily after weeks at sea.

There was barely time to resupply. A suspicious templar had seen him disembark that morning, he was sure. So one handful of jerky, two water canteens, a tarp to use as his tent… and the mage was climbing through the wilds again – hustling away. Anders had slogged all day through underbrush, scraping his arms on thorns and awkward twigs, uncaring. He moved quickly. He had been walking for hours, cutting through the woodland, pressing forward until he stood at the other side.

And when he had reached it, tree needles thatched into his feathered robe, tongue dry, he had just stopped. There was gravel beneath his boot soles. There was a large pillar of redwoods and conifers behind him. The mountain's shadow leant backwards over Kirkwall, a dark spot now looming in his wake. Before him, the sky was enormous – pale, smoky grey – leading into tundra and flatland. He could smell a fire somewhere. He took a breath. He felt as though he was standing at the farthest edge of the world.

"_Where are you running to, mage?"_

He had no idea. This never bothered him before, but suddenly, he felt very, irreversibly tired.

"_You will never reach your destination until you know what it is."_

With nowhere else to run, Anders turned around – saw Kirkwall gleaning dully in the distance – and ran back. He was not sure when it had become a charge.

Anders wasn't sure why Kirkwall reeled him in, an apostate in a brass city made of chains – but it felt _right_, so he picked up his plants, and he walked home on exhausted boots.


	2. The Maimed Smile

**The Maimed Smile**

You could see her teeth.

She might have been pretty, once. Nobleman blood didn't lengthen her eyebrows or flush the dainty tip of a proper court lady's nose. Her coarse, blackish locks weren't lush or particularly rolling. She wasn't tall. Freckles didn't pepper her collarbone, a sweet compliment to soft features. The girl was too hardened to be beautiful, a well-used whetstone – but that did not prevent her from having once been pretty. Who knew? Maybe an hour ago, Anders could've accidentally brushed by her in the Lowtown bazaar, and done a quick hopeful double-take to see if maybe she'd glanced back.

Now there was a rip in the girl's face – deep, red and bare – a strip of thin skin shorn off like a corn husk. They would not tell him how it happened. _"Just fix it, mage,"_ the two Red Irons grumbled at him, one at each side of that retching, cordlike body, holding their associate down upon the operating table by her ankles and forearms. She was bellowing, all nonsensical growls – inhuman, canine sounds from her belly. Blood and spit splattered from the mouth she could not close. Her biceps bulged, egg-sized and leather bronze. The entire left stretch of her jaw stood pink, tender and stark; no flesh or tissue remained to shield gums from open air. It was wide and already flared with tetanus. Her expression was stuck in a wild-eyed, ugly sneer, framed by a shoulder-length mane of gnarled charcoal-brown hair. Her molars glimmered fearfully in the torchlight, like a skull.

It's not his business, and he generally makes a policy of not asking about the _hows_ of lacerations or infections. The answers were bland and disgusting; often times, they made him cringe, and Justice question mortals' collective intelligence. Did any doctor really want to know the details of how old Missus Aberdale got that kink in her sagging neck, or how young Martin managed to contract a venereal disease through his newly-donned Chantry smock? Not bloody likely. Anders would be perfectly happy never hearing the sordid stories behind most of his patients' clinic visits. There was something about this case, though – be it the horrific nature of a face-injury or the way this woman was barking and snarling her shock – that made him inquire. As the mercenaries pinned her there – unkind, hairy fingers pressing bruises into their wounded cohort – the mage was unsurprised explanations weren't exactly forthcoming.

It wasn't as if he had ample time to prod them, though. Anders grabbed for a bottle of alcohol, poured it onto a fresh cloth; he dabbed at the torn edges of cheek. It was too broad of a strip; the leftover skin would not stretch far enough to be stitched together in the conventional way. Enamel grinded together. Dilated pupils and sclerae flared into one another, squeezing nutmeg irises out of existence.

He was confident she could not feel the vodka's bubbling burn, stunned, nerves overloaded; but the sounds she made would've shattered glass windows, had this converted warehouse sported any. Her roars broke into screams shrill enough to wake the dead. Breath puffed from her nose, tears and mucus smearing the intact side of her face. It made the unskilled tattoo laden there shine – dull, purple ink carving a rustic comma beneath her eyelid. Her padded jerkin was soaked through to the white tunic beneath. Anders grabbed the woman's blunt chin to hold it still and realized how small it seemed; how easily it fit in the curve of his palm. Small boots pawed at the table, soles stomping, toes dragging. Small hands with sharp nails were drawing blood on her associates' wrists. It was hard to believe she could still be conscious. She sounded like a war horse downed by an enemy shield.

"How did this even…?" he murmured again, having forgotten they'd already brushed this question away. You could see a bit of her cheekbone poke through the gash – a hard ball of pristine ash in all the meaty red. Her nostrils were broad and compact, swelling. There might've be a break in the upper bridge. Anders ruffled through his unwashed yellow hair, scanning for a point of entry into this mess. "It looks like a tiger got hold of her face."

The biggest one snorted at him. They both wore full helms, copper and chain, stamped with the guild's militant insignia; it was hard to see faces behind so much protective mesh. Anders couldn't help but think of those pesky talking darkspawn that trudged around Amaranthine. (The voices were just about a dead match, too.) "You're powerful talkative for a slum doc. I tol' you already: get that pointy nose out of our business and patch it up. Or stop wasting our time."

Blood began oozing through her canines and running in thick rivulets down the woman's neck. She had chomped into her tongue.

"Open her mouth. Quickly," Anders ordered, fumbling for something to wedge between those squealing teeth. He found a potion cork; it would have to do.

They stood staring at her, anxious – watching those teeth like children around an unsprung bear trap.

"Or not. Maker. Get out of my way," he snapped instead, shouldering between the two burly swordsmen. They jostled aside only enough to let him gain access. Anders wasn't keen on losing any digits, himself; with steel pauldrons gouging him on either side, he pressed one hand onto the girl's forehead to restrain her palate, tilting a small gap between top and bottom mandible. A fast finger pried them open. He shoved the stopper in before she could snap down and released.

(Funnily enough, that was the second time he'd performed this maneuver today. The first had been on an elf child with an abscessed baby tooth – and he'd gotten nipped pretty damned hard. Little gremlin drew blood, even. Fine thanks for pro bono dentistry. Well, all right… it wasn't as though he could actually blame the boy. If a strange apostate began poking around in Anders's mouth, trying to yank out his loose incisors, he'd damn well have crunched them, too.)

He did not bother trying to piece the woman's face back together with normal medicine, sewing needles or field dressing. Her sweat and saliva was speckling the wood. Teeth sunk into soft cork. You could see the jaw muscles flex where her hide had been torn away. An inch or two higher, and her left eye would've popped, black and ginger leaking out. It nearly extended her mouth to her ear.

Digging an elbow into one set of mercenary ribs, fighting for room, Anders cupped his palm around the hole and summoned Justice.

It did not feel all that strange anymore – combining their powers to heal. Sure, the experience of channeling a spirit's energies had been awful at first; it burnt, twisting his guts, making his sinuses pinch. Once, shortly after their union, Justice had sensed peril and shoved Anders completely out of his own head during a raider skirmish… a sensation like passing out, chased by pounding headaches in addition to extreme confusion. The apostate had been furious. His parasite hadn't cared. And even today, after months of seeking a healthy balance, the process of adjusting their control levels still came accompanied by an uncomfortable twinge. But the symptoms were not as pronounced; they were usually quite manageable, now. He learned to retain his awareness, losing it only when great danger threatened them both. Disregarding the way it _looked_ – and it certainly did jar others' confidence, his auburn eyes searing frightening cerulean and fingers dripping blue powder – Justice was extremely helpful. Sort of like having lyrium hotwired into your bloodstream. But without all those nasty shivering-vomiting-collapsing withdrawal side-effects.

It must be said, the noble Ser was not entirely fond of being compared to a templar drug.

Actually, perhaps "summon" was inaccurate… an inaccuracy Justice would not appreciate. Their relationship was more like this: Anders occasionally called upon the spirit, and – if it became him – he would answer with an illogical boost of power. If he did _not_ approve, the mage risked a struggle for direct possession or even bodily harm. Losing these tug-of-wars was a terrible, harrowing feeling… like banging your fists on unbreakable glass, watching your hands through the prison windows of your eyes. Then the usually friendly Circle refugee became very unpleasant for everyone within his immediate proximity. You need only ask poor Captain Rikard for confirmation on that. When a deafening sea storm reared itself over that small cargo ship Anders took to Kirkwall, the apostate had run onto their deck and blasted curling black waves away with his bare hands, chatty voice suddenly booming deeper than the thunder. He'd also accidentally blasted four or five crewmates overboard without so much as a courteous "you _might_ want to step out of the way, my good man."

Rikard was pretty glad to send him packing, all things considered.

Oh, well. One didn't become an abomination to make friends, did they.

Healing magic was safe, though; charitable acts almost always won their case with the crusader. Which was a fortunate thing, because – much as Anders enjoyed seeing cocky bandits piss their small clothes when Justice unexpectedly pushed his way to the fore – it made him _really_ self-conscious. He couldn't help this nagging, awkward feeling that the spirit made him stomp and carry on in a manner awfully ridiculous for a leggy Ferelden apostate with feathered shoulders. Sort of like if Pounce twitched his ears and let out a lion roar.

Anders just wasn't built to thunder, really.

That certainly did not stop these gloomy swords-for-hire from skittering away when the mage suddenly went cobalt from his fingertips to his elbows. Oh, no – this apostate had made a great deal of headhunters startle in their heavy plates since he'd signed up with old Justice. He'd be lying if he said it didn't make him grin. Sometimes. Rarely. Well, all right. Rather a lot. But no matter what the mallet-headed thugs were doing down here, while inside his clinic, Anders never made it a habit never to smile.

"_Straighten your face,"_ Tinny had groused on the mage's first day in Darktown._ "You ought to be comforting these people – assuring them with professionalism and mercy. Be like a hero is. You look like an overeager nursemaid with clumsy hands."_

'_I bet you never had any friends in the Fade,'_ Anders thought back, but his upbeat hellos and welcoming nature didn't last long beneath this groaning ironwork city, anyway. No… the clinic put him in a fairly unhappy mood, these days – be it a product of Kirkwall's rampant social disasters, constant disease, capture paranoia, or simply disgust at having to cleanse wounds where the Gallows templars dumped their shit.

"Andraste's tits!" one of the legionnaires squawked – the one with the silly dictator's moustache – his pimpled jowls flapping into a grimace. He pointed at the girl with a calloused finger.

More specifically, he pointed at the rime gathering along on her forelock, turning umber tendrils brittle and icy. Her shoulders were at her ears, muscles contracting, body shivering. Eyes pooled larger. A tightening in her throat stopped the screaming for a moment and made way for chattering teeth to dominate the stuffy chamber. Her breath condensed until it was clearly visible in this humid air. Tissue tightened around bone; affected flesh swarmed like termites, wobbling wherever his fingers grazed. Something crackled. Granted, the process didn't look altogether peaceful – not what one would picture of mending magics – which, for some reason, all warriors expected felt _tingly-warm_ and/or were accompanied by the scent of cloves and mint.

Anders suspected this was a very elaborate scheme on behalf of elfroot-brewers worldwide. The curatives he mixed both smelled and tasted like Sundermount mud, generally speaking. Maybe he should write a pamphlet: _Health Potions Debunked_. Either that, or he'd just start dumping copious amounts of vanilla and cinnamon into his stock. Better yet – lace them with narcotics! Monopolize the alchemy market of Kirkwall! Slap a charming, winking sketch of himself on the bottles and become a merchant prince!

Justice gave him a stomachache for merely joking about it.

"What the bleedin' Maker did you do to her?" the bigger one said, thrusting out his crooked chin as if he had any real authority here, glancing at Moustache with one hand fisted and the other anxiously drifting towards a silver scabbard. He looked somehow like his name ought to be _Joe_. Anders decided on "Mandible."

"I'm not a priest; this is healing service, not a psalm," the apostate said, sounding a little snappier than he meant. _'Yes, yes. Always must be on guard against foul witchcraft, even in a doctor's office.' _He was all too familiar with the usual ignorant anti-mage routine. Best to finish up quickly when they began yapping and eyeing him sidelong.

A gurgle – followed by one quick, visceral jerk like gutting a fish – and the woman was flat on her back, seizures now quiet, limbs that had once strained against her companions dangling limply over the counter's edge. Smoky hair melted to its proper texture. Scuffed boot heels clicked the table legs. Lashes drooped stupidly over unseeing eyes.

But the bolt of skin shucked off her face had been successfully reduced to a scabbing, scarlet line. It was macabre and intimidating, sunk straight through the inner flesh of her cheek. It curled grimly towards her lobe. It was very scary-looking. The reek of infection was gone, though, and her bones and molars nestled in a mouth with restored integrity. Cracks in her facial bones had fused shut. Justice's brute force was admittedly not wonderful for cosmetics, but it got the job done. Considering the damage, actually, this was not a terrible piece of work. To be honest, when they carted that girl in here, flailing and howling like a banshee, the apostate figured she'd lose teeth – probably in addition to an eyeball.

There was a fine thread of spittle leaking from her upper lip. Anders wiped it off with his sleeve.

"Well, that's it. For future reference, the lady might consider buying a helmet. You know. Preferably before you throw her face-first into a bear pit."

Moustache chuckled nervously, which made his high-strung cohort slug him in the ribcage. The displeased mercenary was scowling himself into what-ifs. "Shit. That was too close. You hear me, maggot? Too damned close," he muttered, still glaring at his companion, using one fleshy thumb to pantomime a slit neck. "We bring Hawke back dead, Meeran will cut the fat off my ass."

"Always nice to see such heartwarming concern between brothers in arms," Anders remarked, a jest made too quickly for any second-thoughts about pestering two snarly sellswords. Oops. The sinewy apostate was a little relieved no one hit him. Black eyes on a healer were hard to explain. _"Your overactive wit will earn you more fights than your magic, mage,"_ he could remember Justice warning once – a time long ago, before they'd been smashed uncomfortably into one vessel. (The spirit's sentiments probably hadn't changed much in that regard, however. He was always good for a lecture, that knight.) "It's going to scar. I can't do anything about that. You might advise your friend against smiling, frowning, talking much or – well – eating anything larger than a grape for the week."

"No talking. Heh. Hawke's gonna' be stark-raving," Moustache snerked to Mandible.

A queue was milling outside; he could hear shoeless feet shuffle the dust. Anders motioned impatiently for them to remove her, circling his wrist. She was perspiring and blissfully unaware. "There's no more I can help with at the moment. Go, please. Take some ointment and bandages off the shelf if you'd like – but be sparing." (They took neither. They didn't seem particularly afraid for their injured fellow now that it had become obvious she'd live. Ah, one could never get enough of hired steel.) "Oh, and…? Next time one of your men gets half their mug ripped open like so, do yourselves a favor and take them to the Chantry. She could've bitten off her tongue and choked to death on it before you ever reached my doorstep. Meeran wouldn't like that, I bet."

"Can't go to the gods-damned clerics with a mage," Mandible shot out, and – that being that – hefted the woman's slack body in one arm and chucked her over a shoulder like so many potatoes. Her knees swung inelegantly. Her chin clicked loudly into his armored back, bangs bristling forward over the mangled, inflamed face. (The 'dedicated healer' in him winced, hoping she didn't just break teeth.)

Anders was skeptical. "She doesn't look like a mage," he remarked, gesturing to her slacks and studded rogue's jacket, to the belt of knives that clattered every which way when they'd slammed their girl's bum on the table. The assortment of skinning blades was still strewn about his office, shining sharp in all this rust. Neither Red Iron moved to collect them.

Moustache laughed. "Right. Because _you_ do."

They flipped a single sovereign at him on their way out, ducking through both makeshift doors, making several downtrodden elves skitter aside. The apostate fumbled with it for an embarrassing moment before the gold escaped him and landed in a pile of hay. His last glimpse of them was the maimed woman's head lolling forward on her neck.

"Bastards," Anders said, shined off the coin, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

All in all, a usual morning in Darktown.

So you could not blame him, then, for not remembering. It wasn't as though Anders had not been paying attention, or that Justice no longer permitted him to fixate his care on certain individuals when there were myriad wrongs to right. It was not as if he dismissed patients from his mind the moment they lanced out the anonymous exit. That he had not remembered was a result of long, taxing hours and the daily decay of Kirkwall's rotted core. And, when – just under a year later – Cala Hawke showed up at his doorstep, her footsteps thunking heavily against the floorboards, brusque and forceful, short face caught in that grim and permanent smile… Anders couldn't recall having met before.

"Hello, mage. I remember you," the girl said. Her voice was flatter than her neutral stare.

He did not remember her name, strong and Ferelden as it was – but he remembered the scar.


	3. Life Laws

**Life Laws**

Hawke lived by three steel rules.

**Rule One**: Err on the side of caution. The surest way to avoid a foolish death is not presume about the intentions of a single soul you meet. After all, it is easy to glimpse any person's exterior – take note of their armor style, asses their wealth, stereotype their posture – and draw several dozen conclusions. These were occasionally helpful conclusions… especially for refugees-by-birth, who could afford no slips or misjudgments. But more often, they were grave misconceptions that led to ambush and imprisonment. All Dalish were not noble scholars. All mages were not tome-buried risk-takers. Few officials, regardless of their statue and decadent robes, were worth listening to. One had to accept the fact that falsehoods were commonplace in every pocket of life, from those gory Gallows dungeons to gilt Chantry halls. It was simply natural order. Mortals want; mortals lie. Disguise made idiots of even the most astute enchanter, so it was vital to always suspect deception – to peer beyond clear blue crusader eyes and humble smiles. The cold truth was that sweet-faced holy sisters in priestess frocks could just as easily gut an apostate as a sword-toting templar. You could trust no man by appearances alone. You could believe no precursory talk. You could never permit yourself to grow soft, pliant – gullible. Cala Hawke learnt this lesson well.

And – after decades of hurtling through weeds to evade the Circle hunters – Anders wasn't exactly a slouch when it came to covering his arse, either.

**-oOo-**

Her greeting, flat as it was, made him whirl about with bristling shoulders.

"I have made this a place of healing," the apostate shouted, grabbing his stave from a corner and positioning himself between this startling pair of intruders and Evelina's children. He thrust out a hand. The staff became a guardrail, its halberd casting wing shadows on Cricket's frightened face – measels and all. The weight of it pulled muscles in Anders's forearm. Justice rumbled his provocation until it spread to the mage's fingertips, knuckles sweating as they clenched around cloth-wrapped wood. _"Make your arm iron,"_ he said, and it was. The weapon's heavy tip stopped slumping. It became still, as though the Ser himself took hold. "Why would you threaten it?"

There were only two of them – well, two that Anders could _see_, anyway. Kirkwall thugs had this bothersome habit of leaping over banisters and onto unsuspecting targets in Darktown. Quite likely because the good ladies and gentleman of their City Watch wouldn't be caught dead wandering these streets… not unless a full contingent of templars had just marched through. But he digressed:

Fortunately, the party that had just entered his clinic uninvited was not a particularly impressive or well-equipped one. They looked a bit ratty, to tell true; old swords and worn-out, ill-fitting light armor marked an underfunded team. Bits and pieces of hardened leather covered joints and elbows. Light hauberks, heavy muscle and lined vests would not stand much chance against long legs and lightning bolts at a proper distance. _Un_fortunately, it was cramped in here. Ignoring the vaguely familiar girl, for now – who stood ahead of her troupe with the straight-faced authority of a leader – Anders frowned at a towering black-haired boy who looked like shieldsmith stock. Lad frowned right back – all bitter expressions, crossed arms, dusty red tunic and rusted-over greatsword. Without exchanging names, the apostate already sensed this dour warrior wanted to sock him for the showy introduction. Too bad intelligence and dapperness never won any fistfights. In these tight quarters, a well-placed charge would send the pretty blond mage hurtling into a nice, solid wall. _Wallop! Snap! _Oh, was Winter's Grasp hard to cast with a broken back.

'_Which would be bad,'_ Anders threw in, just to make sure Justice was still listening. A measured dose of Vengeance might be incredibly convenient should the flat side of a bastard sword suddenly rush towards his nose.

_Hmm_. Menacing sellswords darkening his doorstep… this whole 'shake down the healer' routine did get tiresome after awhile. _'It appears someone upstairs has sent a little hired might to ruffle my feathers. Happy day. That's just peachy.'_

And there was that mabari.

Anders, if he might be so bold as to remind you, did not particularly _like_ dogs. He was quite slightly extremely screaming-and-clambering-up-the-nearest-lamppost terrified of them, in fact. That this specimen was a particularly well-bred dog, its muzzle brown as a field fox, did nothing for the mage's nerves. Oh, no. Forget the docks-district thugs with Fereldan metal in their eyes. That animal's black forepaws were almost the size of Anders's _hands_, by Andraste's flaming knicker-weasels, and its fangs nearly the length of his fingers. If any of these ruffians took so much as one angry step forward, he knew exactly what his first spell would be: a fireball. Right in the mutt's daunting, vulpine face.

Then, you know… the whole cussing, bleeding, scrambling up medicine shelves bit.

The children bunched behind him, ready to bolt at a second's provocation. _'Smart kids.'_ Not exactly brave squires-to-be, but as Anders of yesteryear would've told you in private: "brave" was a sorely overrated concept. Far better to be smart. And these urchins certainly were; Walter, wizened by seventeen winters as a slums beggar, had already snatched his young surrogate brother off the examination table and wrapped him safely in an arm, backpedaling until they crouched behind it, protected by a rogue mage and one solid foot of oak. Well, granted. The older one looked to outweigh his doctor by about twenty solid pounds and boasted about wielding Darktown's meanest uppercut – but Anders couldn't very well claim himself a healer and then hide behind some adolescent boy. Oh, Maker no. Justice would _never_ let him live it down. Evelina probably wouldn't be so thrilled, either.

And then – there was the girl, herself.

She stared bluntly, with an inscrutable set of pale leatherwood eyes.

The woman's face was still as small as it had been – petite-structured, concentrated towards its center – boasting a narrow stare above a dark, dense, unsmiling mouth. They were not thin and sylvan features. Shallow cheekbones rounded out and provided the face strength, blocking it from the 'waifish' classification. The bride of her nose was short, its end oddly flattish. The tattoo curving beneath her eye was sloppily-done, plum-color bleeding around its edges, staining the girl's good cheek. Mousy hair prickled between broad shoulder blades, longer and shaggier than he remembered, shining like dust through the glassless window. These aspects gave her a bizarre, aggressive toylike quality. She reminded him of a pewter soldier figurine. Her hands were empty, but they clenched around air in lieu of a quarterstaff. They were also quite compact; undersized digits, broad knuckles, overgrown and untended fingernails. They were the kind of hands that ought to be holding a spade.

The girl stared at him, halting mid-step. Her eyes blinked. The thick, ghoulish scar stood along her cheek – still horrifying; still two shades lighter than the natural tone – and it tugged when she spoke.

"If I threaten you, mage, it isn't intentional," she said, unmoved by the stirring display of Anders, Defender of Cowering Street Rats. Her voice was a low buzz, clinking from her back teeth. It sounded forcibly calm; the consonants were pronounced with bizarre special attention. He was put in a strange state of unease at how she kept referring to him as 'mage.' "My name is Hawke. I need a minute with you."

Hawke wore leather and chain – bits and pieces of warrior plastered onto a crimson surcoat that tried its hardest to look unlike robes. She'd donned the same boots for a year. Her bare legs flaunted the fresh scrapes on her knees.

The woman's tone hadn't been malicious, but Justice knew better than to let placid introductions put them at ease. _"Amicable men welcome unknowns with open arms, relying on blind hopes they will not end up with a dagger in the back. Amicable men die. Prudent men, however, treat all uncertain entities as a potential threat – and, while they might not be loved, they live,"_ the spirit had advised him shortly after entering Kirkwall. Anders called him a paranoid stick-in-the-mud. But he listened. Templar militarism shackled this miserable place; the walls themselves were built with brasswork slaves and iron cuffs. It was not a city where one ought to assume the best.

Anders was very much a Prudent Man today, and unconvinced. "A pleasure," he sniffed, auburn eyes darting between her brute and her patient dog. Maker, it was _huge_. A few beads of sweat began popping up at the nape of his neck, dampening fine yellow hair, itching at his studded coat collar. "_Do not be such a babe. It is only a beast,"_ Justice scolded. The apostate thought seriously about lighting his own robes on fire… just to shut that tin can up. _But_. "You're wasting your time if you've come here for 'protection fees'," he insisted. "Tell your Red Irons I will not be intimidated."

"I'm not trying to intimidate you – and am no longer a Red Iron. We mean you no harm, good man. Nor the children, there. I've been interested to meet you. There are a couple mercenaries in Lowtown who claim you saved what's left of my face," she offered, a peace treaty, and the rip in her mouth made it hard to tell if Hawke meant to smile.

Cricket kicked something over behind him, and it made Anders jump in his feathered coat. He glowered to make up for it. His arm was getting sore, which meant Justice had started losing interest, apparently deciding they weren't worthy opposition. "You come down here with your minion and your dog, and tell me you don't mean to intimidate me?"

She cocked her head, a slight shuffle of uncombed hair. Bronze eyes blinked at him. The scar straightened. "Ah. This isn't my minion – it is my brother – and the dog is actually my mother's."

"_It_ is my brother?" the lad behind her snorted, unfolding and refolding his ogre arms. "_It_?"

They did look a little alike, now that Anders was actively checking… the same piceous hair; the same tawny skin thickened by sun exposure; the same belligerent, unashamed stature. It was a posture common to scrappers and refugees. Their shoulders hunched forward absently, defensive by design. Though the size difference was apparent, both were clearly cast from the same forge block. Fereldens – in accent and stance. It was obvious as the burly man's prominent nose and the tear through his sister's face. Perhaps he should've felt kinship with them… but didn't, a possible stamp of Justice.

Hawke twisted her chin, mangled cheek disappearing for a moment, to growl. "Carver, if you don't do as I say and be _silent_, I swear…"

Disappointingly enough, Anders never got to find out what the woman swore, because her sibling snapped this threat off short. "You'll what?" he cracked, "Turn me into a frog?" (_'Newts. Frogs. Why is it always amphibians…?' _Anders couldn't help but wonder. _'Why don't you ever hear about mages turning cheeky farm-folk into… oh, I don't know. Porcupines? It just seems unimaginative to keep bouncing to and fro between-'_) But Justice nudged him back towards reality before the apostate dreamed up a satisfactory answer. There had been little change. The insolent brother was still nettling on, a thorn digging a lion's paw.

And he shoved Hawke's back, knocking her in the spine, sending his apparent sister stumbling forward three pigeon-toed steps.

It looked like someone yanked a cougar's tail.

**-oOo-**

**Rule Two: **Do not, at any time, let others destroy the guise you've created for yourself. When your world demands hardness, be hard. When it calls for hate, rage. When it permits mercy – on those rare, fleeting occasions life allows softness – be yielding, like olive eaves. Retain the stature you choose, whatever it is… but do not tolerate compromise, particularly from those who ought to follow.

Never let someone undermine your authority. Particularly not your suckling brother.

**-oOo-**

Hawke was not nimble. She walked heavier than the meager weight of her body allowed, if that was even possible. Her flat-soled boots thudded the floorboards inelegantly. When she tripped, it was all buckled ankles and gravity. When she caught herself, it was clumsy. When she spun around and lunged for Carver, fingers flattening on his collarbone, it was all shoulders and wilds aggression – the girl pushed her brother backwards, using the suddenness of her anger against his superior height, balking him. Her palm heel kicked his chest. Her free hand fisted, a half-threatened punch, nails licked with lightning.

The man withdrew, resentful towards the instinctual scrunch of his body. He said nothing, but it was enough. The submissive hitch in his jowl was enough.

Then – fast as she'd turned on him – Hawke let the punishing hand drop, and extended it to Anders with a smile made lopsided by her scar.

"You can call me Hawke. Did I say that already?" She had – but the accent lent the harsh, wintry name annoying elegance. It sounded like _Haulke _the way she said it; all sharp 'k' and silent 'l.'

Accepting it meant laying down his staff, so he refused. "You did," the healer noted, flicking her a chilly nod. Walter made an _ooh_ of approval.

"And you're Anders," she added, grin weakening in confusion over _what went wrong here_, feeling a bit put out. The small, squarish hand began to look awkward as it hovered midair. It sweat a little. She folded her fingers and stretched them, deciding whether or not to put them away. His hands were both fists – one clenching a stave and its partner balled stiffly at the mage's side.

"And we're Cricket and Walter. He's Walter. I'm Cricket," piped a voice from behind the upturned table. The boy's face was covered in welts redder than his hair, fever tinting his skin yellow, but there was an upbeat expression on that pimpled mug. He slurred through a chipped front tooth. Walter clapped a hand over Cricket's mouth, but not before the little one got out a pleasant: "Are you mages, too?"

Anders flashed them a _"do you mind?"_ look. The fidgety lads quieted down. (_'Evelina really needs to teach them some better manners. I mean, honestly. Forget about the obvious danger to both parties. You still can't just up and ask some absolute stranger if she's a mage. It's just… well, it's rude.'_)

"I'm Carver," the brother cut in before another distraction could rear its head, wary of his sibling, leaving plenty of room between them as his ego recovered. He was a petulant and grim-faced young man. The dog panted beside him, stubby tail thumping an iron greave. Cricket cooed in admiration, eyeing that sheared coat, black toes and perked ears. (_'Stupid ragamuffin,'_ the apostate couldn't help think, heart still walloping his breastbone from within. It was quite a downgrade from "smart kid," but circumstances change. _'Sorry, chum. Didn't mean it. Not so hatefully, anyway. It's not your fault you're such a dummy.'_) "Word says you're a Grey Warden. You a Warden?"

"Maybe we should send the children away before any more talk of Wardens, do you think?" It wasn't much of a question; as he said it, Anders gave an impatient jerk of his chin, signaling them away from the door. "Boys, if you don't mind."

Cricket bolted out, danger forgotten, thanking his lucky stars to have escaped any painful treatments today. Walter was close behind with a mumbled "messere" and one ointment bottle tucked into his threadbare coat. The apostate kept an edgy hold on his stave until they were safely across the room, under the door, and well out of sight.

He sighed.

He was probably going to get the measles after all this was over, too.

"If you're after me to make you into Wardens or some similarly stupid nonsense, let me save you some time: definitely not," Anders said, finally lowering the staff. Its base clicked the ground like a period point. The sharp stabbing-end leant easily against a shoulder, its owner less frightened now that he wasn't responsible for defending anyone – but far from ready to disarm himself. Pasting a broken body back together was one thing; safeguarding it from harm was another area, entirely. It was pressure this runaway did not appreciate. One could be much bolder on his own. And so he was, both arms crossed over a sinewy chest. The man attempted to look as severe and Warden-like as possible, but because Annie-Lynn had been a god-awful role model when it came to straight-faced _commanderness_, ended up projecting Justice. (Made him a little sore, that. If the spirit read his thoughts or took any pleasure from this little display, he didn't mention it.) "I left. I'm an ex-Warden. Quite possibly the _only_ ex-Warden. So you're looking in the wrong place for a recruitment speech. And, incidentally… from one Blight survivor to another… it's not what it's cracked up to be."

Then, muttered, only for himself: "Stodgy bastards made me give away my cat."

"You assume too much. I've washed enough spawn blood off my hands to know the _last_ thing on earth I'd like to be is a Grey Warden," Hawke said, sparse brows furrowing toward the short bridge of her nose. She either hadn't heard or didn't care about his grumbled asides. _'Suppose it doesn't matter which…'_ – not when the order (or, as he'd begun frostily calling them since kissing Pounce goodbye on Felsi's doorstep: _They_) was concerned. "We don't want to join. But we are here on business. I want to ask about-"

And Anders was left hanging disappointed again, because the damned mabari – who had been mercifully docile up until this point – overheard his cat diatribe and began whimpering concernedly to his masters. Though these growls were pathetic, the mage felt his blood pressure rise with every troubled bark. He skittered. It was involuntary and unavoidable.

"Shut up," Hawke told it, lips pushing out a _'ssst'_ sound. Two fingers tapped the animal's cold snout, effectively sitting it down. Her red mouth tightened and the scar twitched. He couldn't stop staring at it.

The scar – not the dog.

Well, fine.

Both.

"Hmm. Are you all right, then?" the woman asked him when her mutt finally clammed up – probably because she'd noticed the scrunch of resistance and exquisite terror that gripped Anders's face at that moment. His eyelids worried until they were nearly closed, top lip curled, spine frozen, shoulders hiked to the mage's ears. He looked like a handcuffed outlaw preparing for the Royal Archer firing squad. "As I said, we're not here to report you to anyone. How can I make that clear?"

"It's not you," the healer managed, gnawing his inner cheek.

"Then what?"

"Your dog… he's… well, he's very handsome." Anders swallowed. The slobbery, kink-eared fiend was looking curiously at him with those soulless eyes. A cannonball of drool slipped its moorings and splattered on the floor. "And also very large."

Hawke gave him a bleary, patient blink. Her overgrown house pet was now scraping the floor with its claws, sniffing around Anders's boots, coughing every so often. He had to fight hard not to shudder. Images of leaping ten vertical feet and sticking himself to the rafters were incredibly appealing; what was the spell for 'Irving's Amazing Jump' again? Maybe he'd just learn shape-shifting and become something with incredible acrobatics and sticky feet. A giant spider might fit the bill. _'I think not – too ugly.'_ What about a gecko? Bats were a definite possibility. Oh, Maker – it was at his knees, now, snuffing and _breathing_ so, tongue lolling in the carriage of teeth. Saliva was plinking on the ground. He wasn't sure whether to lunge for a mop or whack the mongrel with his stave's business end.

Justice gave a smarting thunk of displeasure somewhere in the vicinity of his kidneys.

"Little Ivan? Useless," the girl chuffed. She bit her bottom lip, puffing out a commanding _'fff!'_ Then – to Anders's joyous relief – the dog retreated, depositing itself in a weary heap of muscle and bone beside Brother Hawke's clodhoppers. The mage wheezed out five solid pounds of tension. Ivan (who was in no way "little") panted contentedly. "We bring him along for effect," she added, flashing a disparaging look towards her sad bodyguards. "He's a horrible coward. Runs from raccoons. Honestly, all we wanted to ask of you is-"

"Maps," Carver finished, sniffing, having tired of their encounter long ago. His sinuses were swollen from the mold and soot that collected in this wretched layer of Kirkwall. If that boy adjusted his gauntlets one more time, scratching at metal and mesh, Anders was sure they'd suture into the skin of his wrists. "We're signed on an expedition to the Deep Roads. Need to know where we're wandering down in the dark… what way to approach, which main tunnels are still open. Figured Wardens could help. This one big-mouth dwarf told us you were the man to see."

"Our mutual friend Varric," Hawke corrected him.

"Right. Who happens to be a big-mouthed dwarf."

"Enough, Carver," the woman said – but couldn't really disagree.

Anders blinked at them. His brows lifted high over amber eyes at half-mast. "So you want to go dungeon-diving in the Deep Roads, is that it? Hah. No," he spat, and watched their expressions fall. "Even if I _collected_ thaig maps, I'm not going to help you kill yourselves. And probably a slew of foolhardy adventurers like you. Don't you understand what that place is? Let me put it into perspective, hmm? Grey Wardens go there to die, and any self-respecting dwarf should be able to tell you that."

Hawke pushed her lips together until the skin around them wrinkled. The gesture irritated him – silly, stupid little girl in a swordsman's mask – but it made her scar bend in a most interesting manner. "Your concern is kind, mage, but it is unwelcome. We'll be accompanying a full regiment of dwarves. And because they have invested a staggering amount of coin… we will be alongside them, with or without the maps. But I would very much appreciate it if you could do this for us." (_'Fresh out of the Red Iron and this woman sets herself on a jaunt into the Deep Roads? There's a flagrant disregard for personal wellbeing if I've ever seen one. Though perhaps that's not quite fair. Maybe it was all the idea of Brick Wall, over here. Maybe they're working me over. Maybe a genlock will cut the entirety of her head off, this time, and I won't have to worry about stitching together any more faces…'_)

"We don't have much money," she was explaining when Anders snapped back to his proper senses. A coin purse jingled as it was unlatched from her clunky belt. Buckles rumpled cheap tunic fabric, which hid her beasts and made the girth of her ribcage appear more impressive than it actually was. "But we'd be willing to pay-"

"Don't insult me," the mage said, his anger pushing out a breathy laugh.

She stared at him. The three of them did – brute, canine, and mutilated leader. _"A fine troupe of rabble, to be sure,"_ rang in his head, but Anders wasn't sure whether this conclusion came from him or from Justice. Sounded a bit preachy, though. Probably Justice.

He waited for their gazes to abate, so that the sweet sweaty-palm silence of defeat might give him ample opportunity to point out his clinic door. But they did not. She kept staring. It was not a glare, like her brother's; it wasn't incomprehensible, like the dog's. Neither was it insidious, though… mundane, unmagical, abrupt. It was as though the girl could see her host was waiting for them to leave – read the exasperation in his eyes, along his stiffened upper lip – and she in turn waited unwearyingly for him to change his mind. His insides squirmed. Justice swirled uneasily, sharing in the apostate's nervousness that this death-faced Fereldan might glimpse him. It was bone-chilling.

It also gave him a _fierce_ case of The Willies, and Anders – just to get the irascible bunch of them gone – relented.

"Fine. You know – fine. It's none of my business. If you're that intent on killing yourselves, I will give you the damned maps with my blessing. Because this is just what I needed on my conscience. But you cannot spread these rumors about me being a Warden. They've already gotten to the templars – I imagine that's the only thing keeping them from burning down my clinic – and those people are worse at mumsing the word than Missus Aberdale down the way. Are we clear?" He didn't give them time to reply beyond quiet nods. "And Maker help you both if any Chanters catch you associating with me. Just… wait there a moment."

And the mage padded over to his file closet – careful not to turn fully on that dumb, panting mabari – unlocking the door and rummaging through sheaves of parchment. They crinkled in messy droves. Notes, patient records, budgeting sheets, pages torn out of alchemy books, local flora guides, impromptu scribbling about his manifesto… they were all mashed together in a paper flurry. Perhaps this stockpile of information would've been helpful if Anders was a tad more organized when he added to it, but oh well. He managed. And _'hindsight serves no purpose but for history scholars, archivers and sentimental fools.'_ Wasn't that what Justice was always telling him?

The Hawkes did not nettle their host. When the apostate finally located his quarry, he stood, brushed off both pant legs, and shook the rolled birch like a punitive parent. "Now. I'm going to hand the maps over, and you're not going to mention where you got them to anyone. Better yet – if you run amuck of the Wardens down there, tell them you pulled these off my rotten corpse. Stabbing victim. Bound, gagged, and drowned in a gutter. Struck down by the sheer holiness of our Divine Mother. I don't care; just make it good and gruesome. And don't come poking around here again unless you positively must, all right? You scare off the people who actually need my help."

"Thank you, mage. These help. In the future, if you need us, I will remember this," Hawke pledged, and when she stepped forward for the maps, tried to shake his hand again. She stuck the draft into her tunic, pressing it safely there. Anders grabbed her arm and pumped before he could think better of it. Her small fingers were oppressive and hurt when they squeezed around his. Her scar coiled up her jawbone.

It was exceedingly ugly – crude and frightening as it had been when the flesh was still fiery pink – but for some reason, Anders couldn't tear his eyes away from the tough path of skin. Usually he saw clean slices in Darktown; rusty kitchen knives spawned infection, but these tipsy paupers could rarely afford real damaging weapons. There was nothing accidental or drunken about this wound, though. Whatever left its mark here had been trying very deliberately to kill the girl. Something horrible had torn into her face and created a bold, perfectly straight line from the place where Hawke's lips met to the obsidian curl of hair that scratched along her left ear. A hook, maybe. It would've fit right in the natural cradle of her cheekbone. Or animal teeth. Or a spiked morningstar, inches from crushing the woman's skull into a ladle-shape. _Ergh_. What an unpleasant thought. This wasn't a fashionable gladiator burn; rather than conjuring war stories, it rang of mortality. At their present distance, he might be able to touch it – a coarse and bumpy texture, like a warp in polished wood.

**-oOo-**

**Rule Three**: Notice. Because you cannot afford not to.

**-oOo-**

He was staring. Hawke covered the disfigured half of her face with one hand, a routine gesture – but did not move. Her mouth pursed. "I apologize."

"Oh. No. No, no. You needn't," Anders choked, mortified. The backpedaling happened altogether too fast. He felt like a human child caught boring holes at the first elf they met – shamelessly singling out those telltale, triangular ears that others politely overlooked. _Graceful_. "I'm sorry. It's healed nicely, actually. It's just…"

It's just that it was striking for its horridness – magnetic as a yard snake in a woodpile.

'_Except poking snakes is generally not the best and brightest of ideas. One tends to get bitten that way, doesn't one?' _The style dawned on him. _'Snake in a…? Andraste's rainbow blood, a proverb. I'm turning into him!'_

Fortunately, Hawke interrupted before the dismay of parroting Justice could fully settle in. "That's all right," she told him, grinning ruefully, the gulley thinning as a dimple deepened. "I hate it when people pretend not to notice."

Anders forced a smile so large and uncomfortable that it stung his eyes.

"Heh," he said.

"_You're so offensive, it's actually painful,"_ Justice said. _'No – wait. That was still me.'_

Hawke inclined her head, hand dropping to fold brusquely behind her back. It was a masculine gesture – one that looked oddly formal in the muck of Darktown, and doubly strange because she was already so much shorter than either Anders or her restless brother. These attempts to be proper were obviously diplomatic; he had to wonder if she was compensating for something. Possibly the hideous scar. Or the equally hideous dog. Or the not-so-pleasant-looking brother. "I'll leave you be, then. Don't forget my offer. By my count, I owe you twice, now. So. If for any reason you need to reach us, drop a line with Varric Tethras in _The Hanged Man_. He's our…" She took a moment to choose the appropriate word. "I guess you'd call him our representative."

"Pimp," Carver scoffed. Ivan barked happily beside him. He nudged the hound with a lazy foot. "Close your trap, you."

The woman shot them an unfriendly look, deciding it wasn't worth shouting over, and gave her host a final nod. "Thank you, mage. Remember us. Hawkes pay their debts, and I don't like leaving them unsettled."

She cast him a forceful brown second of eye contact, dipped her crown one more time, and about-faced.

"All right…" Anders sighed, returned to his workbench, and almost let all three stomp crassly out his doorway before adding in (against Justice's advice): "But it's going to get powerfully awkward if you keep calling 'mage'."

Hawke paused, glancing at him over a shoulder. Her hair ruffled around the shoddy tattoo. "Why?"

He couldn't help but snort his surprise. "Why? Aren't you…?"

"I _have_ magic," she insisted, straightening, chin jutting as her molars ground together. The girl's shadow looked suddenly rock-solid. Her hands balled snugly against both thighs, but she did not twist about to face him directly. Strange woman. "I'm not a mage."

Surely she wasn't confused about the terminology. She wouldn't have lived this long. "But you _are_ an apostate. You know that, don't you? What you call yourself doesn't keep the templars at bay. This is Kirkwall. You're an apostate as much as the rest of us are."

A breath was tempered through her nose. "Yes."

Anders smirked. "I don't think we're operating on the same definition of 'mage.' The standard practice is dabbling with demons and shooting fireballs from your hands."

Hawke was like a dock plank. She sighed, impatient, tongue sour around her rationalization. But she gave it – and did so in a sedate, weather-beaten tone that suggested these same words had left her mouth five dozen times before. They made her gaze shine dully. "Listen. My brother kills. It is his way – how he's been allowed to live his life," the girl went on, voice firm. Her sibling gave little indication of anger or pride at being used as an argumentative device. He wasn't accepting of or unused to the philosophy; this was a man who simply frowned at all happenings, wherever they fell on the positive-negative spectrum. Yes, he did rather look like a brawler born-and-bred. "Assassins, too, kill by trade – it's how they manage to live theirs. Does that make my brother an assassin? Hardly. You understand."

Anders made his best attempt at looking perfectly _understanding_, a product of highfalutin Tower academics and rigor.

He ended up blinking.

"Actually? You've lost me."

"I never belonged to a Circle," Hawke pressed, turning her body askance, taking more of the questioning healer into view. From this angle, he could not see the scar. From this angle, she was less of a survivor and more of a person. The smoky, sunken stress circles around her eyes suited them. "I never took their trainings. This is not my career. I have no interest in becoming one of them. Magic is mine because it was given to me – but I am as much of a _mage_ as Carver, here."

There was a pause – a minute to negotiate her theory.

"I'm NOT a mage," Carver chimed in, just in case of any lingering doubt. Anders had a few choice jokes he might've dropped at this interval, and Justice had a couple grumbling insults; fortunately, both were in agreement that harassing Hawke's grouchy, greatsword-toting brother might be a decidedly bad plan of action when everything else had closed so swimmingly. _'Another day, another dunderhead.'_

For now, he looked to the woman. She was still looking back with a third of her focus. "The Chantry doesn't make those distinctions, you know."

"I know. I'm not looking to argue if it's right or wrong. I don't really care much what you or anyone else thinks of how I identify myself. But this is why I'd appreciate the same discretion I'm promising you. I have no clinic or Ferelden Grey to protect me."

Anders thought about it.

"You have a very scary dog," he noted.

She tried her best to grin.

"Well," the healer mumbled, finding this whole mess unnecessarily convoluted. He laid his staff across a stack of bandages. The table rattled empty vials and cleaning unguent. "Far be it from me to debate magic nomenclature with you. If you're not a 'mage,' then what do you call yourself?"

"Hawke," she said, like coloring a name. "I'm just Hawke."

It became clear to them, so many years later – how Anders grew to like that Hawke had these rules, for it meant that he needed few. The ethics of untrained mages did not hinder their ability to be free. So they traveled together. Her power was bridled and rough, hardly latent; she would've made a ferocious arcane warrior. He watched her for the signs of demons and possession – found none. Justice waited for eventual decline into half-cocked blood rituals. It never occurred. She was open to the Fade and shut to the notion of mastering magic. Spirits must have stirred around her, clustering the weak calf apostate. But if Hawke heard them, the woman never spoke of it, and sealed her ears with the same fortitude she ignored how lyrium felt beneath her fingertips. She did not deny what could have been with education and cultivating. She did not claim her body was clean of the Maker's curse. She did not lie about her disappointed father, who could teach only restraint to an unwilling student. But she made a rule of dismissing how the world burnt when her pulse surged. A vein would jump in the girl's temple – a bush would ignite, a rotten crate combust, an enemy's armor melt into his face – an Anders would take credit for it, though she said nothing; there were always rifts in the block of her mind.

She called her staff a spear. And, more often than not, she gutted with it – even with fire roaring down the base.

"_I never wanted this,"_ Hawke would say, scowling at nothing, tilting the weight of it in her palms. _"I refuse."_

Because she had so many rules, Anders needed few. He did not need to justify magic, because she had no interest. He did not need to make up elaborate stories of how he tapped so strongly into healing mana, because she did not want to learn. Hawke hated the templars because they destroyed her family, and she ran from them because it was her way of life. He didn't need to highlight their wrongdoings. He didn't need to diminish their deaths with reason and protest speeches. She never asked for reason. She'd formed her own codes ages ago, a necessity for an unwilling apostate; did not need to hear his rules.

Except one.

**Rule ad Mortem: **Make no apology for being what you are.


	4. Watchdog

**Watchdog**

Anders had been sitting at his shoddy desk, quill-in-hand, diligently coloring in a knothole when something _scurried_ just outside the clinic door.

It was late in the Kirkwall night; Darktown had undergone its daily transformation from a dusty maze of ragged tarp into a grim and dangerous labyrinth. Sulfur vented through sewer runs to sicken those who lingered by the grates. Doused bonfires smoked and stank. Seagulls folded their wings and huddled in the cobwebbed rafters, tucking keen bills into grey backs. Moonglow hit the chained statues across the harbor. Anders could see them through the window, sitting here quietly, waiting for stragglers and avoiding another chapter of his manifesto. Five pages of notes last night, written while half-asleep – and now, once today's healing thoroughfare had died down, the mage couldn't make heads or tails of a single line. The handwriting was so terrible even he couldn't read it; several solid thoughts were present, but they smashed haphazardly on the parchment, scribbled margins overlapping bullet-points and potential chapter headings. Attempts to appease good little Andrastian readers blurred his grander messages, and he kept confusing his verse numbers. The paragraph he'd just been writing had somewhere along the line turned into a shopping list.

**One of the most basic errors in our thinking is the failure to make a distinction between magic and mages. The Chant tells us that magic was meant to serve Man. It is only logical to conclude that mages are the men magic was naturally meant to serve, else there would be no disparity between those who are sensitive to it and those who are not. Though it is the Maker's way to let us make our own decisions and mistakes, gifts from God are not accidentally given. We must accept that those upon whom magic is bestowed were deemed in some way worthy to carry it, and are not 'cursed' or sl FORGET THIS**

**-2 portions embrium  
****-cleansing unguent  
****-new work gloves  
****-mandrake root (powder)  
****-1 bottle caraway seeds  
****-spindleweed extract  
****-4 packs sea salt  
****-3 gal. distillation agent  
****-bread  
****-plenty of clean vials**

**((MAGIC IS A TRUST/TEST, NOT PUNISHMENT? Too sacrilegious?))**

'_Much too sacrilegious.'_ Sketch that down, even in censored form, and they'd burn the poor author on a witch-pyre made of his own leaflets. The real question was, though: did he care enough not to make the claim? Well, that and: _'exactly how much will it hurt when the executioner slices off my writing hand and flops it beside me on quartering block?'_ Thinking along those lines, perhaps he should tell Justice to stuff his vaunted martyr's pride and publish under an alias, after all…

'_Or maybe I should get a scribe,'_ the apostate thought to himself, tapping a crow feather pen against his mouth. Imagining a failed poet or scholar hopeful scurrying around this chaos hole and jotting down everything Anders said like a good little disciple made him smile. _'Yes. Excellent idea. I'll just skip over to the town hall tomorrow and hire one with all my impressive doctorial profits. Right after Knight-Commander Meredith writes me a personal apology letter and brings me in as First Enchanter. And then she and Orsino finally confess their burning secret love for one another and elope for the Green Dales. Heh. Heh-heh.'_

Anders sighed.

Unable to look at this cluttered desk any longer, the man stood, heard his knees pop, and trudged outside to close up shop. Granted, he never really left the clinic. Too often did stabbing victims, poisoned urchins and Alienage wives with blackened eyes come banging on that door in the wee hours of morning; they knew their healer lived out of his office, as it were, and occasionally would hustle him out of bed with bloody shins or heaving children. True, the rule was "Look for the lit lantern," but they completely disregarded this boundary once his housing arrangements became clear. It grew annoying after his first month in Kirkwall, because sleeping as a Grey Warden and runaway mage proved difficult enough without the constant threat of midnight hemorrhagings. Sometimes he would lurch off the uncomfortable cot in a cold sweat, tumble onto the floor – swearing templars were kicking in his wall. Other times he would wake up screaming something he wasn't sure was human, head swimming with gory visions of the Horde. Often the apostate would open his eyes to a gushing head wound or broken ribs; a lost smuggler fight, or perhaps a soused laborer who tumbled off steep docks-district stairs. And different still… Anders was commonly forced to hurl himself alert and into patient mode when some swollen mother-to-be shuffled in because she had a minor stomach pang. (If there'd been _any_ appeal to the idea of knocking boots with some poor sod's pregnant girl, it was obliterated by roundabout the second delivery he'd supervised.)

Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered putting the damn lantern out. Or, you know – _having_ a door.

'_Rats,'_ Anders decided when he couldn't find the source of that crinkle. Stray animals down here were often skinnier than he was; they also won out in the greasy, unkempt and rotten category. Still, the man tried not to think too hard about buck-toothed rodents burrowing through food stocks and grime. There'd been a massive one squeezing its belly through two off-kilter planks yesterday, just feet away from his sorry cot. Justice didn't give a damn about the pests, of course, but his human host was a little finicky about diseased claws, tartared fangs, mange-eaten fur and red eyes gleaming in his potion cabinets. He shuddered.

Because Anders did not rest very well or very regularly, feeling relaxed enough to actually sleep wasn't a state he wasted. Tonight might even have a slim (but blissful) chance of being quiet; there were no brawls roaring outside, no free-ale-giveaways at local taverns, no thieves' guild competitions tearing up these haphazard alleyways. Hoping to squeeze in more than a grating series of two-hour naps, he set to locking up. The mage hefted a sack of used bandages for the street burn pile and stepped outside. He turned the dirt road corner, skirting beneath shadowy outcroppings and torchlight, before tossing his bag onto a community bonfire. The few lingering elves gathered there mumbled drunken hellos; the healer returned them. They had grown used to seeing him wandering about by this night and year – Anders wasn't sure a Circle fugitive would've received the same welcome sans medical uses, but he was a little disadvantaged to complain about Darktown hospitality. At least no one had tried to strangle him yet with a length of fishing wire. That was about as warm and homey as this hardscrabble slum got.

Trash disposed of, the apostate swiveled about and walked back home. He whistled a little to keep himself company in the dark. The square arch of his clinic was awkwardly bright in all this gloom, lamp candles burning steadily at their wicks, flickering through scarlet paper. Ghastly shapes chased flames up the wooden wall. Looked like ivy, really. _'Very unnecessarily creepy ivy.'_

And there it was again – his fingers on the doorknob and a dank evening chill brushing up his yellow coat, against feathers, through scraggly blond tufts. _Crinkle._

Anders narrowed his eyes.

Justice flared caution along the mage's spine, but that rustle hadn't sounded like an armed templar – it was low to ground-level, accidental, and far too quiet for metal-shod soles. No, he'd learned to pick out how the nails of hostile soldier boots thunked cobblestone many years ago. This sound was nothing like sneaking maleficar-stalkers. Sort of a funny thought, to tell true, because there was hardly a single "sneaky" bone in any Chantry warrior – no matter what their job specification might've claimed. And, while he wasn't normally the type to go chasing after strange noises without a staff at his back… let's face it: no holy-roller in their right mind would take a lonesome stroll down here after sundown. _'All that spit-shined armor'd attract bandits like a spotlight.'_

So, not too terrified at what he might find, Anders padded over to the nearby aqueduct pipeline and peered into that blackness between stone, stagnant water and moss.

He tried one guarded "Hello?" followed by a generic "Is anyone there…?" – both of which went unanswered. The healer frowned. Edging carefully around stacks of emptied crates, he ignited a small flame in the palm of a hand; its globelike glow threw his shadow on concrete blocks. Dripping persisted deep inside the tunnel. Cobwebs glinted on box corners. Justice complained about what a bad idea this was in the form of a rapidly worsening migraine, but Anders shoved him aside and leant forward. Long fingers tripped the grating; he reached as far as his light-arm would stretch into the passage's murky throat.

"Come out of there," the apostate ordered. "Cricket. Cricket, is that you? Get out this instant. Else I'm going to tell your mother you've been crawling in the run-offs again."

No answer.

Anders's frown turned into a grimace. Maker. Someone's child was probably wedged far back in Lowtown's access tap, camping there as though slick flagstone walls made up a fortress. Forget about the contamination and mice that might nibble your toes; linger below harbor flush valves long enough, and drown beneath pounds of seawater, dams flooding during storms or Kirkwall's late night tide. "Perfect," he bit out, snorting. Couldn't let that just sit and fester on his conscience, could he? After passing over Deep Roads maps and washing his hands of those Fereldan mercenaries just this afternoon, his pass card into the Golden City was expiring at record-breaking speed. It was probably on _fire_ by now, with or without unlicensed magic practice.

"_Children – abominations withstanding – deserve your mercy always," _was Justice's stance on the issue. And, much as he resented agreeing with his spirit tagalong in any way, shape or form… the healer probably couldn't argue._ 'Ugh. Being a villainous magister would be so much cleaner.'_

Resigned to crawling into a mold pit on hands-and-knees, Anders cussed. He stooped down, fingers freezing on the rock and in cold, briny slime; a cringe bent his face as though the mage had swallowed a lime whole. Oh, yes. The urchin who scurried back there was going to pay. Circle escapees weren't usually men of great discipline… but it was _disgusting_ and eerie and probably seething with fish scale infection back there. Wind caught odd angles and howled as it funneled through the claustrophobic passageways. No doubts about it. Anders was dragging this stupid brat out by an ear. Justice looked kindly on imperiled children, even after his disposition hardened into something darker – but the noble Ser did NOT disagree.

He was head-and-shoulders into the channel when the clumsy rustling turned into a very distinct _hiss_.

Anders squinted, forcing his vision to make sense of the distorted forms and absence of color. When he finally did, there it was – quite plain as day, in fact – matted, bristling, and curled angrily into a corner of aqueduct. Its eyes were furious gold. Its coat was oily, prickling, and black as pitch. It was currently growling bloody threats to scratch his nose away if the man got another shuffle closer, and its once swishing tail had been long ago stomped or cut or bitten off into a boxy stub.

It was a cat, and it wasn't altogether happy to see him.

Which was unfortunate, really, because Anders almost let out a squeal of delight when he saw the blustering animal wasn't just an enormous sewer rat preparing to leap at his jugular.

Dark as it was in here, the little moonlight filtering in from the overhead manholes silhouetted a snarling head. Ears flattened back, canine teeth shining around a curled pink tongue. It pupils retracted. Lips peeled to show hostility, but the mage could see they were stained white, and little droplets had flecked onto the whiskered feline snout. Its paws were damp as though they'd just been wading in a saucer. _'Andraste's girdle! The milk finally worked!'_

"Why, hello there! Look at you! Here, kitty-kitty," the mage cooed, not particularly caring that Justice was rolling his (proverbial) blue eyes. A chipper tone didn't soothe its hackles. The first legitimate house pet he'd seen since arriving in Darktown bared sharp teeth and hissed louder before slipping further into a pipe outcropping. It looked about ten seconds and another well-placed grumble from bolting. The apostate's expression fell.

"No, no – come back; I've got a… well. I've got this cracker," Anders said, and tugged a portion of foil-wrapped welfare bread from his pocket, holding it out with two fingers far as he dared. "Not very enticing, but you want it, it's yours."

The cat sniffed at his offering, body hugging low to the ground. Flinching, it nipped the baked, hard square of wheat from Anders's hand and crunched. Crumbs scattered the stone, gamey jowls swallowing as much nutrients as they could manage. It licked leftover salt grains from the floor.

"Wow. You liked that – really? I've got _parcels_ of crackers back in my clinic. More milk, too."

And he really thought the hungry beast was thinking these bribes over when a sudden voice – metallic, like an anchor plopped into a wave – rang out behind him. It was ominous and razor-edged. Despite the calm air of authority, it was also quite prickly – a hint of serration to the words. A female voice, certainly, but one absent of any traditional femininity. There was absolutely no room for arguing with it. And, considering his head was currently halfway into an aqueduct pass, the man was taken completely by surprise.

"Hullo, Anders," it said.

His skull cracked into the underside of sewer grate.

The mage swore and gripped his head, feeling a knot growing there, scalp swelling beneath the gathered base of ponytail. _'Andraste's tits!' _He spat out an extra "damn" for good measure. Justice was sparking self-chastisements about oafishness and unsteady nerves through his mind; most of them went ignored, and some refuted. By the time he looked back down that dim stretch of pipeline, the cat had disappeared.

"…hello, Lieutenant," Anders sighed back, rolled out of the duct, and stood up to regard the broad freckled face of Aveline Vallen.

Kirkwall's fresh City Watch lieutenant had clanked into Darktown on her punishing steel boots some months ago – shortly after its denizens began whispering about their new Fereldan healer. She wasn't sociable. She wasn't courteous. Naturally, the upcoming officer had seen it as her duty to ensure this so-called saint wasn't in fact a wicked conman peddling shoddy wares on desperate peasant folk. Counterfeiters thrived throughout civilized Thedas; this ball-and-chain city proved no exception. While the woman was not an overly suspicious sort, she had inherited a templar shield; Circle apostates were not something any upstanding lawman took lightly, whatever their affiliation. And so Aveline had stomped down to Anders's clinic one fine afternoon, sending illegals running in tourniquets and cheap slings, to shove him against a far wall and (in her own elegant words): _figure him out._

Figure Him Out, as the mage learned, was this lieutenant's cute term for "interrogate." Fortunately, his reputation wasn't limited to health poultices and Warden intrigue; no clever spell-caster escaped those Chantry watchdogs a grand total of eight separate times without becoming one hell of a slippery bastard. Anders was slippery in form and in speech. Vallen found no dangerous infractions, upturned every crate in the place without stumbling across any smuggled lyrium, decided his headquarters was clean enough, and announced she had charitably decided against arresting him. Oh, the strapping soldier hadn't liked him… that much was clear. Her fear of the maleficarum was as obvious as that heroic chin; she was all armor polish, tanning rope, forge hammers and trumpeting marches. Beyond his profession, Anders – a wiry, crafty creature – irked Aveline simply for those feathered pauldrons and sideways grin. She would narrow at him on those rare occasions they passed one another in Lowtown's bazaar, glinting green, shooing away amicable brown.

It wasn't his fault, really; he just looked guilty, the apostate supposed, even when speaking absolute truth.

"Patrol?" Anders tried, and was shut down by her unfriendly stare.

There was no casual "how do you do" or polite inquiry about his health; Lieutenant Vallen was not the type for such useless niceties. She simply fixed him with that boxy regard of hers, shield glinting across massive shoulders, sword sheath banging at one cuisse. "Not tonight. Not exactly," the woman told him, gauntlets crossing powerfully across her chest. Gardbraces scraped together, flashing her rank stripe; ginger hair slanted angrily across Aveline's brow. She was discontent with him. She was also eye-level to Anders – a good inch taller, even, if you subtracted his boots – and probably benched his entire body mass with one sturdy arm. "That means I won't bother asking you what in the Maker's name you were doing crawling into a city aqueduct. There are more pressing concerns keeping me busy at present."

"Such as?" he asked, pleasant tone driving the tack deeper. Teeth gritted in the guardsman's jowl. She rather reminded him of a hunting Vizsla, to think on it; tall, indignant, brutishly noble, all red.

Oh, Anders didn't really care for dogs.

"I have been very lenient with you, Anders." Her words were fair, but there was a sharpness beneath them that spoke louder; the lieutenant did not plan on praising him tonight. Or ever. A wrinkle dented the dappled bridge of her nose. "I looked the other way when you couldn't produce a residency permit. I turned a cheek on your history because I can appreciate when a troubled man is doing good. By the grace of Andraste and very much against the wishes of Knight-Commander Meredith, I have steered the mage-hunters away from this door _more_ times than my conscience called for."

"You're a great friend," he said, grinning. Vallen looked fit to purple his cheekbone. _'Don't rattle the swordsmen,' _sanity chimed in, reminding him for the second time this evening.

She looked like a distrustful brick wall. "I heard you met my friend Hawke today."

"You know Hawke?" He hadn't meant to jump so – to say this like it meant something to him – but the harshness of that name was memorable, and it startled.

Aveline's disgruntled expression turned menacing.

"Not that _I_ really know Hawke," Anders threw in, shifting back one safe step, disliking the intensity that gripped her face. Perhaps admitting to contact with a former Red Iron wasn't the wisest thing he'd done this week. The mage was already preparing a list of excuses that ranged from a wild _She Blackmailed Me!_ to a bitter but more sedate _Oh, THAT character_. Vallen was regarding him with stilettos spinning in her pupils, but while her irritation was obvious, it could be difficult to pinpoint the exact source of warrior aggression. Laying the right tone on words that meant nothing at all could save a cornered apostate, you know; doing so tactfully here required a little more sounding-out. Yes, she had shown reason and clemency, both of which reflected well on her free will… but he couldn't afford to incur the wrath of a tough city sentry who knew this much about him. He could barely risk annoying her. "We spoke for fifteen minutes, maybe – no more. Suppose I'd just assumed a sterling officer like you wouldn't take to mercenaries."

Anders wasn't sure how he expected the guardsman to reply, but it probably wasn't with: "Stay away from them, apostate." Her thin upper lip tightened across large incisors. Freckles like fly bites slid over flexing shoulders. "They are not like you and they will not run your clinic's errands. I will not warn you again."

The healer balked at her accusations and her forcefulness. Both were commonplace from this woman, but that she suspected a rogue mage of hiring freelance sellswords for _any_ reason disturbed him greatly. Probably because hearing rumors of it had deeply disturbed her. "Wait, wait. I think your sources are confused. It's not as though I sought them out by name, or anything like that; they came down here to speak to _me_. It was hardly a meeting. Wanted a few directions, is all."

She jutted forward, making him withdraw, her glower set in militant iron. Aveline could've simply thrust out and knocked him cold with a head-butt at this distance. Justice did a fine job of keeping the frightened flinch off his host's face. Another lunge like that, though, and he was sure his eyes would burn cobalt. "The Hawkes are MINE, mage."

Anders blinked. "…yours?"

"Yes. I let you operate. _I_ do. In the viscount's offices, I am your only advocate, and I stand between you and the Gallows because I believe it is the right thing to do. But you listen here. When it comes to the Hawkes, I don't care what your goodly mission is, or how badly understaffed or underfunded you are – they have no part in it. None. And if you rope that family into your troubles for whatever reason – if you bring Warden business or templar suspicion or ANYTHING down upon their heads – so help me, Maker, I will end you. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"You've got this backwards, lieutenant-" he began to protest, but swallowed it down when she growled at him. _Growled._ He wasn't exaggerating. It built in the watchman's gut and rumbled up her throat, chasing the vicious sneer that bent across Vallen's mouth. For a moment, he wondered if she might just forego the demands and bite him.

So "Um. Yes," he said instead, lamplight tickling along the back of his robe. It glanced off her Chantry shield and twinkled the watchman's stare like lodestone.

Aveline nodded her grim satisfaction. "Fine. I'm glad we see eye-to-eye, then, serrah. Stay out of trouble." It was less of an encouragement and more of a threat.

She brushed off without another word, soles clattering against the unpaved street, uncompromising in stature or speech. And the devoted officer made sure to whack into his shoulder on her way. Anders staggered. He was still rubbing the bruise out of it when Lieutenant Vallen's orange Kirkwall City mark faded into darkness, its dragon's head insignia followed only by a stubborn, steely glint. The mage – and Justice – watched her go.

Anders harrumphed.

"She wants us. It's obvious," he said, and blew out the lantern.


	5. Wortcraft

**Wortcraft**

Three weeks later – just when he'd had enough opportunity to forget about her – Hawke showed up at Anders's clinic door.

"Showed up" was accurate, the mage supposed, but in no way did it embody that hecticness with which she'd suddenly stumbled to stop beneath his warehouse's swinging lantern. It was late afternoon, sun making the statues ooze bronze, glancing off graffiti tarps to pinken bare necks and shoulders. The woman looked like one of those immortalized slaves today. That distinct face was a colubrine shade of jaundice – pale, malnourished, her forehead and cracked upper lip dotted with sweat. She breathed open-mouthed and raggedly. Skin swelled around her light eyes, making them look like sleeplessness or undeath. Dark hair wilted black, stuck with perspiration. Her peasant's clothes were male-cut and poorly made: knees torn out of old britches, stitches worn, boots dulled, stains spreading beneath the tunic's armpits. Hawke was winded and unashamed; she swallowed the dust motes out of Darktown's stale air, stalled in the threshold, expression grave as a River Dane general.

Granted, he was accustomed to panicked refugees bursting in on his solitude; but rarely did they hurl about such command or silencing presence. The girl looked harried beyond negotiations. She gave the apostate, who had been happily filtering water into a potion bottle, quite an unpleasant start.

The dripping Hawke sucked her stomach full of air, and stared at him, and serious-as-death said: "Mage, I need you."

Anders almost shattered his carafe. "Er. What?"

"My uncle is ill," she puffed, not seeing how badly Darktown's healer had fumbled the fragile glass bottle. He saved it before elfroot elixir smashed into pieces at his feet.

That made more sense, yes.

"Can you elaborate?"

"Yes. Yes, but I can't explain it. Yestereve he was fine, but over the night – I don't know. I don't know what happened. He fell very sick; violently sick. His cough is damp and red I think he might be dying." She wiped her face, a vicious and uncaring scrub. It wetted the fine hairs on her arm. Repetition, a product of high stress, turned the flat Fereldan voice tight and urgent. "I don't have time to detail this for you," Hawke pressed, exhaustion making her snap. She left no opening for questions. He only blinked. "I'll tell you more on the way. We live in Lowtown. In Old City. Please – we must go quickly."

Much as Anders would've liked to give more serious thought to Justice's wrought-iron theory –_"THIS IS AN OBVIOUS CITY WATCH TRAP, FOOL." _– the wise-cracking mage had always been something of a sucker for a damsel in distress routine, even in his Tower youth. This _Hawke_ hardly fit the "damsel" classification no matter how you turned your head and squinted, true. But, from the look of her apparel, he was all her family could afford; nothing about the brother-sister mercenaries had seemed wealthy, with even their armor screaming _scrounged_. The apostate did not judge. Moneyed nobles had decorated physicians, scholars, Circle contacts and stock cupboards of antivenin to keep them breathing. Merchant heirs finagled with embargos and shipping codes that allowed them plenty of margins into black market remedies. They kept their health under financial control. It was these battered, undermined city-dwellers who demanded his attentions, and – as Anders began to think – who drew Justice to Kirkwall. They were the disadvantaged he'd obliged himself to help.

And, unfortunate as it was for a man with every interest in not ruffling guard lieutenants… he had sort of committed to it, regardless of how carrot-topped and cretinous their friends were.

Anders grimaced. House calls were not unnatural, though he generally preferred to make them with immobile locals. Staying close meant responding quickly to any unsuspected chaos; his lock was sturdy, and it wasn't as though a profitless doctor had much worth stealing, yet straying too far made room for disaster. You need only ask Justice. Everything was "room for disaster" with him, including but not limited to: diamondback, discount potions (that one was valid), cake of any kind, fraternizing with the ladyfolk, wearing your hair too long, eating fish you didn't catch personally, skinny-dipping, burning embers while you slept, singing, an occasional ale, lewd jokes, whistling while you worked, buying a kitten from that dwarven haberdasher down the way, and – for some reason – playing with the feathers on his coat.

Anders began to suspect that Justice had something against every sort of fun in existence. ("Why do you hate my happiness!" was his principle comeback these days, to which the knight usually responded with: _"I hate only your stupidity. The proper question to ask yourself is why these two things so often coincide."_)

Oh, he despised it when that tin can got philosophical.

But the weekday had been unusually slow, so – combined with medical duty, a generally good conscience and curiosity that trumped his fear of Aveline Vallen – this request convinced him. The healer laid down his rudimentary alchemical tools, hurriedly stuffed a field knapsack with all-purpose medicines, then slid around his workbench corner with a jangling pack and told Hawke to lead the way.

"_Despite my warnings, you still bounce like a rabbit into a snare,"_ Justice grumbled. (Anders wasn't sure why the spirit had this inclination to compare him with small, frolicking forest animals, but he supposed there were a few worse things to be. Dead, for instance. Stuck in a decomposing, puffy-eyed corpse named Kristoff when you could be splitting legroom with a handsome mage, for another.)

"_You mortals' preoccupation with appearance is irrelevant to me. Do not dishonor the memory of Ser Kristoff,"_ his parasite chided. The apostate shrugged it off. _'Fair enough, Tinny. But you still owe me.'_

He followed Hawke through the ugly bedrocks of Kirkwall – clattering up stairs, beneath laundry lines, around elf murals and into the wagon-choked thoroughfare of Lowtown.

The woman ran heavily, as though she was flat-footed; her soles hit dirt, planks and cobbles with warrior brazenness. She had no patience for questions as they sprinted up a narrow ramp, boards clattering, towards access flights to Old City. The humid sail-canvas of Darktown opened to factory smoke and adobe buildings, cracked with heat. Oxen lowed to their masters. Freshly de-toothed cutlass fish baked in merchant stalls. It was a reek, here – amidst the not-quite-destitute, these two-room apartments that were open to the full scorch of the Free Marches sun, the proletariat class that hovered one broken ankle over beggar – but it was a different reek than the moldy below. Down there was all sewage, steam and bonfires. Here there was smoke, tar, and sunburn. Quarters were still tight, even with the smoggy blue sky overhead rather than burlap and crossbeams… but they made their way hastily, unhindered by traffic.

(He couldn't help but feel it was a shame, really. Dodging templars made Anders proficient at lunging through claustrophobic alleyways early in life, but Fereldans were a breed acclimated to wide, damp stretches of earth. They liked running and breathing in dewy flatlands. They liked livestock ranching in boroughs where your neighbor was a distant cottage upon a foggy hillside, not stacked atop your home in beehive fashion. No Orlesian fluffery or the safety of artisan municipals would nourish them; more than once during his exiles, he'd heard a shepherd bluster _"moors make real men,"_ as though there was some bloody ingredient in mud essential to gaining one's status. Too many of their countrymen had withered in the narrow rat's maze of this city; their muscles, optimism and energies waned like cooped-up herding dogs.)

Anders outstretched her shorter legs, but the girl was more suited for moving through crowds. She shouldered away workmen dragging their feet without concern for bruising ribs, egos or feelings. They darted around a noonday cookware auction and beneath the bazaar's wilting streamers. Light filtered through thin cloth to flash muted, transitory stripes of gold and crimson across their bodies. The woman's hair flashed red and his glinted cornsilk orange.

He considered mentioning her good friend Aveline's unannounced visit, but thought better of it, and saved his breath for more important concerns.

"How did all this start?" Anders asked, ducking under a low-hanging vegetable grocer's lean-to, wrapped flasks clinking at his side. Dried belladonna rustled overhead.

"He was _fine_ last night," Hawke huffed, oxygen pumping through her chest like farm machinery. "Fine, and then feverish this morning. Sweat through his mattress in maybe an hour. Started coughing, shivering – thought maybe he had pneumonia," she said, pausing to swallow, swerving around the baker's corner stand. Cinnamon bread tickled Anders's nose and gave him an awkward hunger pang, but Justice – disgusted by his bad timing – stomped it out. "The blood just came. I ran to you."

"I'll do what I can," he said, because there was never more to offer than that.

Anders had deduced from her occupation, brother, and rustic manners that this family was not upper-crust. Craftsmen's heirs did not bound about Darktown in shabby plates, after all; clerk officials preferred to sign their children into universities, not mercenary guilds. They certainly did not appeal to expatriate apostates for medicine. Yet he could not have imagined she would be quite so poor. The house Hawke led him to was a cramped, dusty, three-room lodging stuffed in a corner of Old City, accommodating four adults plus an oversized dog who doubtless out-ate them all. Ramshackle bunks stacked vertically to save room, and two sleeping pallets still congested one discreet space by the musty, burnt-out fireplace; you couldn't tell which was the mabari's. Straw doubled as tinder and bedding. Soot caked itself on the ceiling and rafters, laden thick as oil paint where no one could reach. Termites had chewed through furniture legs, most made of bleached driftwood. Crates took the place of chairs. Cast-iron pans with no proper home had been hung from nails on the wall. The hovel smelled like ash and overcooked barley soup, was clammy in the way of homesteads where one bathed out of cooking pots; their cowardly pet had wedged himself under a cluttered writing table when strangers burst in, abandoning his plate of miscellaneous meat jerky. Letters scattered the floor.

But Anders kept an eye trained on that damn animal – just in case.

"_You concern yourself with hounds when you ought to save lives,"_ Justice blathered. _"Mind your purpose here."_

On the largest mattress was a steadily aging man, grey hair hand-sheared, eyes black, bones prominent through his emaciated body – and, true to Hawke's word: he was spitting mouthfuls of blood into a ceramic vase.

"Mother! I brought someone. A doctor. Let him see to Uncle Gamlen," the girl said, tattered from their sprint. Anders winced at the sudden attention. "Uncle Gamlen" was not in very spiffy shape; he looked like years of tobacco-smoke and cholera. He fought those who tried to assist him as much as possible with dry heaves ripping from his toes to chest – which was not much. His face was cadaverous, pasty and glazed. His shoulders shook beneath the worrying hands of a care-weathered woman – Hawke's mother. She wiped drops of reddish saliva from his mouth with familial care, but flattened him down across the bedclothes in lawful-arrest fashion whenever he struggled.

Hawke's mother was very pretty – prettier, perhaps, than her soldierlike daughter. Silvering hair and deepening smile lines did not obscure the matriarch's femininity; her locks were well-combed, styled, and her simple washing dress hand-dyed to look higher class. The stance she chose was not slumped or aggressive; her posture was unmuscular but assured, spine straight, chin up. She used charcoal in lieu of paint, but her eyes were the same pale leather color as Hawke's, if slightly dimmer with the twilight of middle-years. Still, the woman was impressively out-of-place. She was refined and willowy, operating with an air of dignity found more often among noble castes than the poor.

It was most noticeable in the way she spoke, though – precise elocution, unexpected calmness, and vocabulary that outsized her social peg. "You have? Thank goodness. Go fetch a water pail, dear – your uncle needs one badly." (That was without doubt; he had sweated straight through a patchy quilt of mismatched animal fur. Someone in the family must've been an amateur hunter. And a horrible seamstress.) Then, to the mage: "Please, serrah – he's been like this for an hour. I don't understand it."

Hawke was respectful, if not graceful; she uncapped a nearby jug and upturned it into the nearest clean bucket, moving to kindle a small heating fire. Anders plunked down in the spot her mother left, scooting out of his way until she sat at the foot of the bed.

Gamlen made a gurgle and thrashed an arm in such a way that seemed like he was saying "Sod off, quack!" – but where his presumed sister didn't shut him up, the bloody phlegm did. He collapsed across a pillow, gasping for breath between hacking fits. The doctor used this opportunity to pin his forehead against it and check for a neck rash before the unwilling patient could recover. Nothing. His tear ducts had been thrown into overdrive from retching, but their color was normal enough, and the eyeballs were free of pox. Blood flecks stuck between gums and dingy teeth, but the color was healthy.

'_Not bad humor build-up,'_ he observed, and jumped when the hiding dog gave a miserable woof. _'But from the looks of this place, it might be a case of bad karma.'_

"Why don't you describe to me how you feel?" Anders suggested – and was shot a hateful look when Gamlen's attempt sent him into another fit before the man could get out one measly word. He hacked a solid inch of crimson foam into that poor, repulsive piece of pottery. The apostate winced again.

Justice sighed. Loudly.

"Oh. Well, never mind," he said, settling his bag between both black boots. "I'll ask the questions; you just nod your head."

"And Gamlen… if you don't cooperate, perhaps I ought to call a Chantry priest to read your final rites," Hawke's mother added, wringing his hand. "I'll use the last of Ivan's food savings to arrange a nice wake." The mix of guilt and mortality made her brother quiet down. His scowl, however, didn't fade.

"Are you in pain?" Anders asked, flipping open the satchel and glancing at his vials. He grabbed the man's chin and twisted it to one side, noting this seemed to have little effect on respiration. A nod was his only answer – an irritated, snorting nod that threatened to trigger more frothy choking. "Can you show me where? In your stomach, at all? What about your abdomen – any cramping?" Gamlen had pawed at his throat and stopped there. The mage snatched one weedy arm and felt for a pulse. It was accelerated – but he _had_ been wheezing brutal scarlet for quite some time, now. That was bound to make one's heart pound a little. "Do you feel nauseous? Did the coughing or the nausea come first?"

"Rotten lung, I think," Hawke said, handing the pail carefully to her mother, eyeing their ill family member critically. The apostate motioned for them to prop him up and listened for gravelly breathing, trying to pin it to the throat or deep in the sick man's back. Neither was exactly a good sign. Gamlen had progressively lost his drive to protest; weakened and blueing, the patient focused on filtering oxygen to his laboring chest. He did not appear to be bloated, however – though certainly was dehydrated. "He puffs cheap cigars by the box. Filled with who-knows-what. Could be chopped with deathroot."

"Deathroot? Dearest, please! Why must you say such things?"

"Don't let him drink anything," Anders said when the girl extended a glass. Her comforts came with harsh critique; or did the critique come with comforts? Either way, Gamlen looked both irate and dismayed to see the wood cup waved away. "Not yet. I have to find out what's causing this. You said he only caught the fever early this morning; where was he yesterday? Where does he work?"

"Gamlen? Work?" Hawke asked, barking a laugh. Her mother glared. She answered in earnest. "Uncle spends most of his time down in the docks, picking off the laborers' tasks. Perhaps he picked something up from the sailors. Or their women."

"Let me see your hands." He took them, rotated them – no purple nails or cracked skin. They were a bit stiff, though, and so the mage gave one knuckle a pinch. "Can you feel that? Has this ever happened to you before?"

A cuss, a few soggy hisses about "arthritis!" and a head shake.

"Here – take this," Anders said, reaching into his pack, offering the man a stoppered tonic instead of the lukewarm, stagnant water. It smelled powerfully of magnesia, tinted with alkanet. (Customers always expected health potions of any sort to be tulip-red. Who knew why?) Still, it was cold and soothing on a raw gullet. Mild ice spells kept his brews chilled and fresh for transportation; they also generally won favors on hot, sticky Kirkwall afternoons. (Walter was always on him to freeze his water canteen every fifteen minutes.) Smart doctors didn't mention where they got the ingredients for this popular mix, though. _Bones_. In this case, seagull bones. Anders shot them out of the Wounded Coast sky with well-placed lightning blasts, stripped off excess down, and then ground up marrow for his stores. "It's not medicine, but that should settle your stomach."

"Medicine? We don't care that you're a mage, man; we only want your help. Can't you just wave your hands about and…?"

"That's a common misconception about healing magic," Anders told Hawke, whose brows had furrowed slightly, betraying concern for her uncle despite the nitpicking. (Justice groaned his boredom with the oncoming lecture. _"So easily distracted!"_ beat out all other criticisms the knight threw at him by far.) A measured dose of lyrium was good for closing gaping head wounds, he explained – occasionally could reverse or alleviate chronic conditions, when applied in powerful bouts – but against acute disease, usually proved useless. (No matter what the Chantry might say, chanting a pretty psalm and pressing your palms on somebody's head did _not_ cure leprosy. Or plague. Or The Rash. Or anything he knew of, really. Magic wasn't a perfect alternative to faith, of course, but there was religious propaganda and then there was bold-faced lying.) "It's why they teach us herbs and toxins, and not just the impressive stuff. You know. The hand-waving, baton-twirling, and pulling bunnies out of hats."

Not to mention… one had to be very careful about running around this city, spinning wands and shooting sparkles out of their fingers. And he wasn't exactly keen on the idea of sticking a thumb down some rancorous Lowtown gambler's throat for contact healing, either.

The girl and her scar gave him a strange, strange look.

"_What have I told you about this constant jesting?"_ Justice asked, expecting deference that his host reluctantly gives. _'That it isn't as charming as I think it is. I know.'_

Hawke's mother dipped a cloth into the bucket, wrung it out, and dabbed off her brother's face. Hawke herself stood over them, arms crossed, watchful, apprehension grimly etched on her scarred rip of mouth. The woman's presence was intimidating in the way of school teachers – a color spot in all the chalk and blanched-out grunge. He tried not to worry about it.

"Can you open your mouth again? Flatten your tongue," Anders instructed, pantomiming the gesture. Gamlen did, he glanced in with his hand for a backlight, and the fat white welts that clogged this man's throat became clear. They were like grubs, oozing blood, leaving raw patches where some had torn off. Naked human eye wouldn't see them – it was too dark – but Justice did have his practical medical benefits.

For the third time today, he cringed.

"Maker – did you eat anything odd?" (A head shake and slight widening of the eyes; "Maker" was never comforting when it spat through a healer's lips.) "Oh, that is ugly. This is way beyond field allergies. Is there anyone with a grudge against your uncle – someone who might want to do him a bad turn?" the mage asked, reaching into his pack for a blister salve. Not meant with consumption in mind, but maybe if he stirred it in with a bit of milk...

"With Gamlen, that's quite possible," her mother answered. "Why do you ask?"

"I suspect he may have been poisoned; there are ulcers all down the back of his throat."

"Poisoned! Andraste – we'll have to clean out the entire pantry. Do you think he'll-?"

"It's all right. Looks like whatever it was just burnt his gullet out and stopped there. Must have been weak or very diluted. Do you have, ah… something I could mix this with? Something bottled, if possible," he corrected when Miss Hawke reached for the water pitcher. The risk of contamination from anything else was too great. Madame Hawke looked horrified at the implication this grizzled loafer could've been marked by an assassin or underhanded rival – but not, perhaps, surprised. "Wine or beer would probably do."

"There are some spirits in the cabinet just there, dearest. He should be able to use those – can't you, serrah?"

Anders, ignoring his tagalong's squawking demands to know what "spirits" meant in this context, took the decanter and scraped two large dollops of balm into it. He instructed Gamlen to down every drop despite the foul taste; it made his lymph nodes swell up like walnuts, but the cankers dried enough to stop weeping blood. Excruciating as the pain must've been, this might've been a good sign; it meant the coughing was a product of chafing and isolated wounds, not an intestinal meltdown. Justice was still on the razor-edge of accusing sick humans of glugging down his Fade brethren. It made the skin between Anders's fingers sweat. _'Oh, pipe down. It's only a little homophone.'_

"Here," he said, handing Hawke another canister of the stuff and rummaging for a heavy phial. "If he complains of itching or rawness, put a bit of this in a glass, stir it up and let him drink it. I will leave you a standard healing poultice just in case anything funny happens. If it does, you can call me back. But I don't think it will." To Gamlen, himself: "You should try not to talk for the next few days. Don't eat anything with lots of edges or too hot, either. And, ah – watch your back a little more carefully, yes? Doubt I have to tell you that." Finally, to the family matriarch: "I'd get rid of any opened food or anything you suspect could've caused this in your home. He doesn't seem to have any skin issues, so the blankets and clothes are probably fine to keep. Might want to throw out the pillow. Any pipes he used, too. And I should probably clean out the glasses for you. Anything that blood touched." He shook a bottle of dissolution fluid; it sloshed, a bubbling pale green.

"I'll do that," the girl cut in.

"You'd better let me. I know how it needs to be done."

Anders had stood, moved to an empty basin, rolled up his sleeves and was about to start in when the front door opened as in charged a sweaty – but triumphant – Carver Hawke.

"I've got it! Blasted Circle merchant didn't want to sell to me in advance, but I've got it! Here, Uncle, take…" A flagon of antidote – rustwater that smelled of predictable, comfortable mint – dropped from its place held high over the boy's head to his side. He was in the same condition his sister had been when she'd crashed into Darktown; gasping, frantic, forehead plastered with damp hair. Except for now. Now, he had seen the mage; victory drained from that broad face, turned sharp cheeks white, and sunk into something like disappointment. Now the dog was barking its way into happy hysterics. Now the lad's mother was staring at him calmly – not at all the relieved joy he'd expected – and Gamlen breathed sans blood drops. Carver looked markedly deflated.

Well. Deflated and suddenly very angry.

"You brought HIM here?" he cried, whirling from the lanky mage – whose sudsy hands were currently stuck in a wash bucket – to his sibling. Ivan kept yapping away, worked up in stupid, slobbery canine rapture. "In our HOUSE?"

Him In Their House, dripping to the elbows with soap, felt a little exposed.

"All the doctors in Kirkwall… all the alchemists you could've run to… and you bring the _one_ apostate to our doorstep? What is WRONG with you?" Large hands slapped to either side of his head, ruffling black bangs. "Are you completely off your nut?"

"Carver, don't be rude," their mother snapped before her daughter shot back. Hawke stood with folded arms and a placid air of success.

"Uncle needed healing. I got him a healer," she said. There was odd pleasure to her deep, even voice. They did not react when the mabari spun around and walloped his massive head into a table leg. Thread spools rolled off.

The son's gaze was wide and furious. His potion, forgotten at this point, was slammed down on a counter edge. (Anders must've been pretty well forgotten about too, he imagined, because they discussed him as though the scrubbing doctor was nothing more than a stray bit of furnishing. _'A coat rack. I think I'd be a fetching coat rack,'_ he decided.) "At what cost? Do you know what could happen to us if even a single templar saw him enter this house? I paid a month's worth of food for this medicine, and I-!"

Hawke's teeth flashed. "If this is about _money_, Carver…"

"You're damn right this is about money! This is about money and safety and keeping a low profile so we don't all get dragged off into a prison camp somewhere! This is about balances, and planning ahead so we all can eat more than one bowl of rice a day! This is about how we're relying on this idiotic Deep Roads expedition of yours instead of getting real jobs! This is about how far we already ARE in debt to that weasel Dougal, who you don't even know will come through with the loan-"

"Oh, you don't have to pay me," Anders chimed in, smiling meagerly, but his hopes were smashed when no one heard him.

"_You're_ accusing me of starving this family?" she snorted, and took a step towards him – loping, instantly dangerous. Anger turned Hawke's walk from a dull thud to a warrior stalk. Her humor was unfriendly; her laughter was bitterly cruel. "You, who stuffs your face with more meals than mother and I combined; YOU, who always takes the largest cut for yourself and leaves us to pick on wing bones…? Hah! Very well, then! I'll just lick your plate, brother. Far be it from me to make anyone want. Better yet! Maybe mother should stop eating entirely – she's old, why should she hog the meat? You do need your strength, don't you, you growing boy?"

"Children! Not in front of a guest," their mother begged, her pleading voice mismatched with a severe frown. "Both of you, work this out later."

But they could not smooth the kinks so simply. Uneasily close, now, the siblings shouted at one another – strong shoulders, salty hair and fierce tones. Anders quietly sidled himself to the farthest edge of wash tub, ready to dodge projectiles. "What the blazes are you even talking about? None of that is true!" Carver hollered, to which Hawke pushed out another mean, jeering laugh. "Take that back! Take it back, or I swear I'll-"

"Maker's ass! Belt up, for the life of me!" Gamlen rasped, choked, and sneezed mucus onto the floorboards.

They glared at each other, at their ailing uncle, at the scuff-marked ground – and stormed into an adjacent room, slamming it shut. Fighting continued. Muffled threats, spitting and sounds of dissent slid through cracks in the threshold. They were like rams locking heads – horns gnarled together, one tripping forward whenever the other moved away. This poor witness was half-expecting that door to blow off its hinges.

The Hawkes were plumb scary.

He poured in another douse of cleansing syrup and lathered faster.

"I'm so sorry about that. It's so unbecoming," the distinguished woman said, tucking down her brother's sheets, pressing a delicate hand over her hair knot. Her thinning lips pursed. Long fingers shook with the onset of rheumatism. The dog settled lovingly at her slippers. "You mustn't think they mean to do you a disservice. It's just that Carver has had a very hard time adjusting to Kirkwall. The stress makes everyone horribly tense. But that's no excuse for such bad hospitality." A sigh. With nothing else to smooth, she set to straightening out wrinkles in her skirts, tugging out the cheap blue fabric. "At any rate, I do apologize. It seems my children look for any reason to fight these days, and in any company. I'll give them a scolding for this, I swear."

He managed a weak flinch of a grin. Fortunately, the lady saw more of his robes' back than face – otherwise, it would've in no way convinced her. "That's all right. It's no crazier than I see in Darktown, I can promise you. Still. I won't bother you much longer."

"Thank the Holy Bride," Gamlen grumbled through a mouthful of oily salve-water. Madame Hawke slapped his foot through the quilt.

She leapt in with more niceties before Anders could dream up a plausible excuse to hustle out the moment his last fork was disinfected. _Damn_. "You have _my_ thanks. Were it not for your charity, I'm not sure what we would've done about this. We're not big Chantry-goers, and with so many refugees asking for handouts from the Grand Cleric… well, I suppose it doesn't bear thinking about the 'what-ifs, does it?" The woman fluffed her drained brother's pillow, giving him a hardy dose of mothering. "I hope you'll let us show our gratitude to you in some way, really, even if it's not in coin. I'm rather flabbergasted people like you still exist in this part of the world."

For all his wryness, the mage wasn't used to hearing people thank him. He rummaged around in the dishwater. "Well, you know. What am I to do – break families' savings because they get sick?" Anders mumbled, feeling embarrassment condense in his temples, reverting to jokes. "Hmm. Tell you what: you can make it up to me with interest when your son and daughter strike rich. I'll remind you then, believe me. For now, you all can forget about this. It doesn't seem like the Red Iron pays very well."

Madame Hawke chuckled to herself, but in a knowing, unhappy fashion. "Not at all," she corrected. "Not their indentureds, at least."

"Indentureds. Is that how you got residency? If you don't mind me asking. When I showed up, they didn't want to let me through the front gates – and I bribed five sovereigns." Anders remembered that day well. He'd been about one shove and a nasty guard from finding a good, rocky spot to clamber over a city wall. Spent the last bit of his Warden reserves on some corrupt, fat-bellied pig, but it was better than stepping poorly on a loose brick and shattering his arse.

"Oh, we never did get officiated. My children's… service only allowed us to stay for the duration they worked for those brutes. Well. It's all over now, thank Andraste," she breathed, straightened herself up once more, and folded both sets of fingers over a dainty kneecap. It was a common story for immigrants; this motivation for joining a mercenary band was as fine as any other, he figured. Anders guessed Hawke was good at what she did. He was not sure why – there was merely that sense about her, a firm-set competence to do what must be done. "The only reason the census doesn't deport us, I think, is because of the Watch. A good family friend of ours is a guardsman at the viscount's hall."

'_Oh, really?'_

"Aveline Vallen, by any chance?"

The woman perked up, delighted. "Yes! She's very dear to us. However did you know?"

Dismissing Justice's bellows of _"Nose to your own business!"_, Anders dipped a plate clean of pollutants and pressed on. "Just a lucky guess," he replied, pleased with his discovery, but not wanting to risk that freckled firebrand dealing him any more bruises. Nevertheless, though. Madame Hawke was oddly easy to chat with… beyond the fact her children were scuffling a few yards away, and her brother vilely cleared his throat while he slept on in a drugged stupor. "The local Fereldans talk to each other, you know. A countryman being appointed Kirkwall lieutenant is bound to stir up a few rumors."

"You're from Ferelden, too, then? Oh, wonderful. I thought you had the look. In your cheekbones, there."

He found this discussion of his cheekbones a bit on the awkward side – like a visit with your sweet but distant auntie in Amaranthine, the man imagined, if he'd had any sweet-but-distant aunties – yet kept on. "Well… for awhile. Not for some time, though. The Blight, and all that mess." (It wasn't a lie, not technically; one just didn't casually mention fleeing the Grey Wardens over washwork and tea. _'Monster-blood-drinking rituals tend to unnerve those of gentle disposition.' _Anders dried off a cheap iron goblet and set it aside. _'So do stories about genlocks trying to gnaw off your legs.'_)

Hawke's mother heaved another lengthy, wistful breath. "I miss it horribly. These walls have made me homesick in ways I can't explain. You must feel the same."

"You know, I never thought I would," Anders remarked, gesturing with a wet spoon. "And here I suppose I do. It doesn't seem healthy in this cage, does it? The Free Marches are all right – Sundermount is scenic and everything, but – I hate Kirkwall. Not enough trees."

"It's awful. Those hideous statues everywhere… it feels as though they watch you, doesn't it? So cold and depressing. I used to live here as a little girl, if you'll believe it, and now it's an utter mystery to me how I ever stood those morbid things. Even on the Chantry – I don't want to speak for you, good fellow, but chained slaves on a church steeple just rings blasphemous to me. Someone ought to tear them right down." The lady shook her head, eyes rolling, dramatic. "Oh, why do we stay?"

"It's anyone's guess. Maybe we like the torture. Maybe we're masochists," he said, and she laughed at that.

"I can't thank you enough for coming here. Truly. My brother isn't proficient at expressing his gratitude, even when he isn't feverish and spitting up blood, but know that you certainly have mine and my children's. If there's any way we can repay the favor, Doctor…" A blink. "I'm sorry, ser mage – I'm afraid in all the nonsense, I didn't catch your name."

"It's Anders," he answered, cracking another flimsy smile.

"Well, Ser Anders…"

The knightly title was funny. It almost made him snicker; it fair appalled Justice. "Just Anders – Madame Hawke, is it?"

Combing a lock behind one ear, she, too, smiled.

It was _uncomfortably_ coy.

"You can call me Just Leandra," Madame Hawke said, and Just Anders was not amiss to the distinct youthful twinkle in this new tone.

_Oh, Maker._

"Well. All right," he mumbled, fidgeting, very suddenly sensitive to the appreciative stare fixed on his backside.

The apostate had never washed silverware so fast in his entire life.

"It's so nice to see a free man with your talents can live in a place like the Free Marches, I must say," Leandra observed, and had Anders been willing or able to twist around, he'd have seen how the delirious Gamlen wearily covered both eyes with his forearms.

"Oh. Thank you."

"I think it's terrible how they chase you people around. Apostates – I don't even like the word. What a heinous thing to call someone with such beautiful gifts."

"Um. Yes."

"My husband was a mage, you know," Hawke's mother said, head tilting, tossing a leg over her knee.

"Ahem. Well. How about that?"

Anders toweled off both hands as quickly as humanly possible, groped for his bag, and was about to "remember" some pressing appointment in Hightown when the feuding Hawkes spilled out of their boxing ring to save him.

They were still thundering at each other, true enough; it didn't seem these two siblings had mended the family olive branches whatsoever during their brief retreat. Leandra's expression scrunched from senior debutant to housemother with an impending headache. Gamlen looked distinctly like he wanted to hurl his cup at them. Carver and his sister – whose first name, Anders realized with a start, he didn't know – had no semblance of fraternity. She shoved past him, unhindered by the burly shoulders; and he chased her, bitching all the way.

Hawke was stomping straight for him.

"What's the gods-damned point of begging to a Darktown mage if you're just going to throw money at him, anyw-"

"YOU WANTED TO PAY FOR A DOCTOR. I'M PAYING FOR HIM," she boomed, baring her teeth again, a flash between claret lips and thick scar. Carver balked. Hawke turned. She hefted in one hand a small, tightly-bundled sack of coins no larger than an apricot; she grabbed Anders's arm, pulled it up, and clapped the pouch into his palm. Her voice was disjointedly amiable. "Please take this."

He was caught a bit asunder. "But I don't-"

"And exactly what is that supposed to make me think of you? 'Gee, sis, you're casting money at a free mage! That's swell!' What do you think you're showing me?" Carver brayed, still nipping at her heels. Ivan – as he always did when the doglike son came storming into a room – leapt up exuberantly and proceeded with tearing after his own wagging stump of tail. "What the hell is it you think you're proving?"

Nonplussed by Anders's moonfaced expression, the girl folded his fingers around her offering, pressing them into the coarse leather wrap. Her hands were firm and insistent, self-assured. They worked with people like one would usually handle a horse. They were also warmer than they should have been – the soot beneath her short, sharp nails and all. She patted his knuckles. "No, take it. I insist."

"You realize what this is, don't you? Don't you? You're cutting off your own nose to spite your-"

"CARVER, I HAVE HEARD ENOUGH FROM YOU!" Her roar backed him up. It gave Hawke enough leeway to guide Anders calmly to the door by one elbow. Her short digits rumpled his yellow sleeve. "Sincerely. You have done enough for us. It will embarrass me if you don't."

Leandra, peacemaker by necessity, tried to mollify them all. She stood spryly, dusting her front. Still, for all the care put into this matriarch's striking appearance and noble demeanor, it was grace rather than authority that proved her strong-suit. "Let's not turn this into an even larger episode. Perhaps there's something else you could do to work for him, dear? I'd bet a doctor in a dangerous part of town like that has plenty of uses for an observant guard. Or even just an attentive friend. Anything you need watched? Protected? I'm sure my children would be eager to-"

Anders, Lieutenant Vallen's obtrusive chin and crystal-clear threats still in his mind, shook both hands "no" as strongly as he could. The damn mabari was still whuffling up a storm.

"Two apostates! In one clinic! _That's_ a brilliant idea! _That's_ not conspicuous!" the lad scoffed – brazen as he might've been, Son Hawke had a good point. Daughter Hawke's reasoning was marginally less-offensive to their mother's proposal, but it concurred.

"I don't think someone like the good healer would be well-off associating with someone like me," she said, a modest confession equipped with a modest smile. Then she opened the front door for him, and bowed her head with all the reserve of a knight-captain. The vicious scar dipped out of sight beneath brown hair. Her spear was hanging in a corner – seared wood, red ribbon and dried blood. "Thank you, mage. Your aid may as well have saved my uncle's life – though he didn't deserve it. Still, thank you. You may call upon me at any time if you require my sort of help… though I hope to never need perform a like service for you one day. More likely..." She '_hmm!_'ed. "We'll be kill't first."

"_Cala_," Leandra sighed, a sparse name for a rough Fereldan.

She wouldn't take the coins back, so he was left holding them, standing on Hawke's stoop with a medicine pack weighting him down.

_Go back to your home. This house is heavy, and these people are chaos._

"Shut up, Justice," Anders said aloud, but the dirgelike feeling in his gut could not disagree.


	6. Avenging Daedalus

_**Formatting Guide**_**: This is a chapter made up of several little sections, high on flashback. I personally find large clumps of italics hard to read, though, so I've marked the flashback segments with dividers. The first line of those segments will be italicized simply for ease, but the meat will be in plain text.  
**

* * *

**Avenging Daedalus **

Anders couldn't really call himself a man of great courage.

Were you to ask the apostate if he had done anything heroic in his life – if he had any defining, audacious moments in which he threw himself between blades and victims solely for the sake of doing the right thing – the answers would be bleak. He'd certainly done brave feats; escaping a Circle of fanatical templar _once_ was enough for some well-deserved bragging, let alone seven times. But every outstanding act of daring-do Anders had performed had not been for the benefit of someone weaker, someone desperate, someone who needed his help to survive. They had all been for him – for _his_ survival, _his_ freedom, _his_ ability to wander this world in a way he'd wanted. He did not smuggle or fight or scrape by for the betterment of others. He did not wait for anyone. He did not even dare look back, really… feet hammering through the Lake Calenhad banks, mud splashing up his boots, pebbles sticking in the treads. He'd lived this long only because the mage's willpower buckled beneath his first instinct. His first instinct was to run.

But a letter came for him today.

"You are Anders, formerly of the Ferelden Grey?" the messenger had asked, a cloaked man in sweeping green that met every one of his preconceptions about shady Chantry double-agents. Pallid, blurry eyes like polished stones bored out from beneath a dark cowl. The healer thought about incapacitating him with one well-placed Crushing Prison, scrambling through his clinic window and dashing off for a hideaway, but there was something oddly compelling about the faceless, unspectacular stranger; there was something loyal about the way that beaten roll of parchment was offered.

"I am," he said, took the scroll, and was given no further explanation – only a salute. The elf bent one militant arm over his chest. He nodded towards the missive; pressed birch was oily in his fingertips, as though it had travelled over a sea.

"Long live our good King Alistair and the Wardens," the visitor had mumbled, bowed, and whisked off into the Darktown twilight before Anders could get out another word.

He slapped the note into one hand, glanced about for any potential spies, hopped onto a clear edge of his medicine counter and opened.

**Birdie,**

**Word from Greagoir: Chantry ship escorting enchanter convoy by Amaranthine run aground in storm on Wounded Coast; templars dead. Blamed mages – all likely to be Tranquiled. Includes someone of interest to both of us: a friend, that one with the kind laugh. Possibly taking them to Kirkwall for processing. Help if you can.**

**Don't have to tell you to burn this letter. No reply. Will kill me if they catch it.**

**Sorry so short. Things bad here. Tower will be another Gallows at this rate.**

**Fly safe, brother. Hope you're free. **

**Firstfall**

_Petra_.

**-oOo-**

"_Really…? That's the best you all can come up with?" The girl, twelve just that winter, wound a lava-red lock around her finger and tugged._

"Are you kidding?" Anders had snorted, swatting the air with a long, lanky arm. His shoes sunk into the fresh spring grass, squeaking dewy blades. A sudden, nippy breeze whisked over the Circle garden just then, bowing the dandelion weeds, pulling oak leaves, making apprentice robes rustle and loosening the knot in his yellow hair. He was fifteen years old. "Firstfall is a great codename. It makes you sound cold and mysterious. People love cold and mysterious mages. They make men shake in their boots. Among other things, perhaps – but those things will occur to you when you're older."

Petra wasn't sure. She bit at her bottom lip, chapped in the warming weather. Lake Calenhad rippled beyond these stone walls, pushing fishing dinghies along, dragging clam cages and crab nets. "But I'm not either of those things. It's not like I got to pick what month the templars found m-"

"Let's just say all the other good names were taken," Godwin chimed in at their left, sprawled out on a bench, blond and pimple-faced and barely a notch above runt. Petra kicked a sullen dirt clod in his general direction. It crumpled up and went ignored.

She sighed.

"Why can't I pick my own?"

"Don't you read literature? You can't pick your _own_ codename. It's against all the rules," Finn (alias _Lawman_) informed her from a nearby boulder, notebook propped tidily on one knee, eyes rolling. His journal was leather-bound and had nothing to do with their current discussion, but he patted it as though those cheap scrap pages contained every unspoken edict in their universe. Or, at least, Ferelden's Tower. It didn't matter which. The girl, plump and apple-cheeked, only sighed louder. Surrounded by three mage boys – one spry and leggy, one cautiously reserved, one buried up to his ears in research tomes at all hours – _Firstfall_ already knew she really didn't have a choice. They were adamant about their silly little clique's guidelines. They were also all a year or two older than her, thus superiors by default.

"I'd choose a cute one," she said anyway, rubbing both arms when another gust of wind rippled through the courtyard. A few Harrowing-age students studying beneath the willow just yonder leapt for their reference sheets. Petra watched them scramble – watched leaflets tumble friskily towards that deep, frosty lake. It would be them, soon. Ten years, maybe less – and _they_ would be teetering on the precipice of their graduation or death, groping slavishly for an edge, wondering who would join the Magi proper and who would be buried in six feet of cool earth. "Something charming. Like _Birdie_. That's sweet."

Anders grew indignant, and flustered. He looked as though he ought to waft plumes. "Fah! Shows what you know. Codenames are only supposed to represent your personality in a peripheral sense, Firstfall, or everyone would crack them – wouldn't they, now? But they have other purposes. They're not 'cute.' Take me, for instance." A finger flicked into the air. "Birdie isn't just for my sunny disposition. It means I'm clever and spirited, that's what. It's good for morale."

Reema Amell whipped her black mane back and let out a laugh that ripped through the young woman's gut. Even on such a cloudy afternoon, sun shimmered through those tresses, glinting on the bronze clips of her belt and hair pins. Petra looked on with the envy and admiration of a clammy child who first realized the beauty of women – a prestige class she did not yet belong to. Reema was sixteen. She was their ringleader undisputed. To this pudgy, uncomfortably shy twelve-year-old, she was also a goddess: all round calves, etched waistline and shoulders that lolled when she leant flat across the sitting blanket, arms folded lazily behind her head. They called her _Wicker_. She didn't know the story behind this name – yet it fit, a supple and crackling sound. "You're so full of it, Anders! We only called you _Birdie_ because you won't stop preening. And because you whistle too much."

"All morning yesterday in the library," Finn added, lips pursing. A wisp of tree pollen made him sneeze.

Birdie – who was perhaps a little _too_ clever and a little too spirited for his own wellbeing – grinned. "And you saw Cullen's face when I did it, too, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. _O Glory to Her Holy Heart. _When you started in with the lyrics, I thought he was going to throw that book at your face. I thought _I_ might."

The knowledge he'd interrupted Finn's lessons didn't seem to disturb this lad whatsoever. On the contrary, Anders heaved a high, satisfied breath, recalling the way that meat-headed templar recruit had flushed pink from neck to the scalp beneath his caramel curls. He'd made nettling their devoted guardians both an art form and a competition. As they grew older, it would begin to morph into a survival technique – a lifeline of method in the madness of a captive mage. "Hah-hah! _Yeah_. That was great. What a knuckle-dragger."

"I hate that lapdog," Reema agreed. She closed her eyes, a roasted brown color, ankles crossing. "Won't take a hint, either. He keeps asking me about my training. It's awful. I think he likes me."

Anders's next jest collapsed into a throaty giggle, eyebrows shooting towards his hairline. "_Cullen_? The actual Cullen – sniffing under your robes. 'My Solemn Vows' Cullen? Ronald 'You Don't Understand How Dangerous You Are' Cullen? You're kidding! That's brilliant," he gushed. "Oh, that's too good. You have to use this to your advantage, Wick. You can't pass it up. Next time he bothers you, tell him… Tell him your training is going _swimmingly_." His lids fell to half-mast, voice swooping to a luscious alto. He flopped stomach-down onto Reema's quilt and linked both hands beneath his sharp chin, lashes batting. "Tell him you're so deep in magic that you're _soaking wet_."

She shoved his face – but snickered. "Filthy boy. Who teaches you these things? Don't tarnish the poor girl's innocence, over there."

Petra, known more often as "the poor girl" than either her birth name or _Firstfall_, threw them an annoyed look. She despised conversations censored for her sake, but no more than obscenities she didn't quite understand. (_"Poor girl!" _Amell had cooed when she first stumbled into the common room during the thick of a winter snowfall… swollen eyes, stuffy nose, tearstained laces and all. Ah, yes. Self-importance, confidence and mockery – that about covered Wicker's brand of benevolence. _"Andraste's arse-feathers – poor, poor, adorable muffin! Let us recruit her, men!"_)

So they did.

Godwin folded his arms tightly in the next gust, perpetually cold, shoulder pads hunching. Crabapple petals snagged themselves in the boy's sandy mop. "He's joking. You _are_ joking, right? Because you should never rile templars in _that_ way, Reema. They tell all those ghastly stories, you know… about what happens in the Gallows. It's terrible. No joke's worth that. Provoking a recruit could only end badly for you. Hells, Jowan's _still_ on observation." (True. They hadn't been able to chat with their doe-eyed sixth compatriot for a month, now; his movements were restricted to bed and classrooms, monitored at all times. "Cufflinks" could not speak to them. He could not even look at them.) "And all he did was give Sister Lily that bluebell. It can get so much worse. I heard in the Free Marches, if you even _talk_ to a templar in a way they don't like, the Knight-Commander can Tranquil you."

"Pfft!" Anders, skeptical, turned over on the checkered throw and used Reema's stomach for a pillow. "That's rubbish made up to scare ickle Circle virgins like you and Jowey. All I've done, and nothing's ever happened to me."

"Don't think for one second that frigid shrew in the Second Watch wouldn't like to if she got a chance," Wick said, smirking. Ser Rylock had been only twenty-eight, then – dour-faced, pale as a bar of soap, wielding a backhand like cold spells. She lunged awkwardly through the corridors with knotty raven hair and coal eyes fixed on her clanging feet. They made fun of her lip mole and frosty demeanor in equal measures. "How red the Ice Dragon turned! There was steam pouring from her nose, she was so angry. I thought she was going to melt into a puddle right there before my eyes. You know what I'm talking about." (Petra had no idea, but everyone else seemed to. She sat cross-legged on a corner of sheet while they snickered.) "_You_ last Feastday. On the banquet table. With the swinging hips and that… horrible, horrible dance."

"The Spicy Shimmy," Finn noted, gravely.

"Just so. Never do that again in my presence, Anders."

"Nor mine," their Lawman added when Reema's tug on Birdie's short ponytail only made him laugh. "I still have nightmares."

"There is many an Antivan whorehouse out there that would cart you off for sure." Godwin shook his head. Their memory made him glance nervously towards the barracks entrance, a grey-brick and militant building, every entrance framed by helmeted templar guards. "I can't believe we all didn't get in trouble for that – just by association. Does 'excessive display' mean anything to you?"

"Funny to hear that coming from _you_, Mouse."

The mage flushed when they all began to titter – even their littlest one, who clasped both hands over her mouth. "I am not afraid of mice!" Godwin shouted, but his red ears said otherwise. "I was studying! It snuck under my foot – who knew what it was? I was just startled, is all!"

Reema seized his slipper with nimble fingers and squeezed at the toes, nose wrinkled, making a series of high-pitched rat squeals through her front teeth. He jumped, leaping off the bench. Laughter rang out louder. It closed Finn's book, made Amell howl, bounced Anders's head on her belly until he flipped to one side with both arms wrapped around his middle. Petra's ribs began to sting. The older pupils, busy at coursework, glared at them across a stretch of tender Cloudreach lawn – but no one much noticed or cared. "Oh, get back here, Mouse!" she cried, waving the shoe that came off in her hand. Godwin stood there on a damp sock-foot and cussed. "Come back! We understand – really! They truly were rodents of unusual size!"

Petra was happy.

"All right! Quiet, quiet," Lawman finally spat out, jerking his head towards fulsome Ser Hadley, who strode along a cobbled path just beyond the hedge bushes. They could hear his armor pieces clack from their small circle. Mouse had grudgingly stomped back and thumped down beside Reema, who chucked his slipper onto the apprentice's lap, smiling as he shoved it on. Finn was still wiping tears from his cheeks, even as he became the troupe's voice of reason. (No surprise; he would've done anything to escape being dubbed _Flora_.) "The whole point of these codenames is so we can write back and forth without them breathing down our necks, not for teasing. We keep on like this, the templars are going to overhear – and we'll have to make them all up from scratch again."

"I wish we would…"

Anders blinked at Petra, sitting up. "If wishes were horses, pipsqueak, we'd all be galloping out of here." And then, correcting: "I mean _Firstfall_."

She groaned. "I want a new one…"

He pinched her nose.

**-oOo-**

From his current place at this sticky tavern bar, Anders remembered how it had dawned on him an hour ago – sitting cross-legged atop the clinic desk, frowning at Petra's cryptic message. He remembered how irritated he'd been with this outrageous need to skirt around their oppressors, how ridiculous it was that their childhood nicknames still had practical uses long after the game had passed – even in personal writing. Most of all, though, the apostate remembered how his heart had suddenly lurched into his throat, choking him, bleaching his hands salt-white with the realization of what he faced.

It had taken him time to organize the jigsaw bits. "_The one with the kind laugh?" _He couldn't imagine what Petra was referring to; there were myriad inside jokes and cuffs and stepped-on toes within their friendship circle, certainly, but no one she would've called out for a signature giggle. No, Anders didn't think so; Justice damaged his healthy sense of free agency, but hadn't wiped memories. (Not that he could _remember_, anyway…) But this line of thought jumped far ahead of itself. More likely, his old friend was communicating more than her scribbled words let on. _'What are you trying to tell me, Fall? The one with the kind laugh… a templar sympathizer, maybe? Kind laugh, though? Kind laugh, kind laugh… the kind lau-' _A gear tripped a harsh, grinding ridge and locked itself down. _'The ki lau. Thekla. Karl!'_

The Kirkwall templars had Karl.

_Meredith had Karl! _

"Maker's bitch," Anders spat, knee smacking into cherrywood, walloping a fist into _The Hanged Man_'s rickety bar.

**-oOo-**

_Finn was the first._

It was difficult to believe – when Irving entered their dormitory that otherwise normal afternoon, took the lad's impeccably clean sleeve, pushed in his chair – and led him away. Anders, Jowan and Reema had seen it happen. They had been practicing their vellum calligraphy, sitting around that circular table, sipping lukewarm coffee from mugs. Godwin wasn't there; he'd been napping, exhausted from the extra sparring sessions Senior Enchanter Wynne kindly offered him, remedial work in paralysis glyphs. Petra, still years away from her own Harrowing, had been in a lecture. It didn't matter, though – within an hour, everyone knew. News spread like a runaway firestorm, licking up the oversized curtains and through flagstone atriums.

Life had been a tense haze for Kinloch Hold's graduating class for the past several months, as it always was when these most paramount of exams began. The approaching tests were not talked about among the templars or Magi – not directly – and there was no set date for any student, but they all knew. Apprentices felt the loom of their trials with adult age; they watched shadows, once comforting, swell and scatter on the tall Tower walls. Nails were mowed to dull stumps. Beds were tossed in. Meals went uneaten, anxious stomachs refusing food. Chest pains, tooth-chipping bouts of the shakes, mouth sores and night terrors became commonplace for everyone who'd recently been bragging over their instructor recommendations. Yes, they _knew_. Maturity was a mark of impending demons.

But _Finn_? They had expected Reema, who was already advanced in arcane and elemental spells; perhaps Anders, because many templars were looking forward with great enthusiasm to that day they might legally stick a sword in his sweating, spirit-possessed guts. Jowan, their eldest – now twenty-five – had counted down his days for years. Even Godwin was possible, albeit a long shot. _Finn_, though? While all five of them were of proper age and status, it just didn't seem logical. In fact, it seemed distinctly _ridiculous_. The tight-knit group had thought that Lawman, so fussy about his cleanliness, would lead them into Harrowing about as much as they'd guess little Petra would.

So, the moment those chamber doors sealed him in – Wick, Birdie, Cufflinks, Mouse and Firstfall milled outside – waiting quietly in the chilly vestibule, largely silent, minutes stretching into hours.

It was well after dark before there had been any sign of life from inside.

Reema was the only one who managed to keep herself awake through the night. Jowan and Anders had fallen asleep back-to-back on a bench, Petra snoring with her head on the blond mage's thigh, a cup of unfinished tea that long ago went cold sitting beside his boot. Godwin tried to stay alert by alternating between leafing through entropy manuals and jogging-in-place, but it didn't work; he'd nodded off halfway through _Enchanter Uldred's Treatsie on The Crippling Miasma_. Just as well. Templars had come and gone, yet none of them would comment, not even when Amell begged. Their only words were: "do not tamper with the ritual." They were suspicious of spying or tomfoolery. Beyond those wary, displeased glances, they would barely look at the group of fretful apprentices.

Then _sound_ from the chamber: fizzling, nondescript, magical sounds. Dull banging. Someone either drew a blade or scraped a candelabra across the circular stone floor.

Reema stood up. Clenched her fists, bit her tongue.

A flap of those heavy double-doors creaked open, and one of the attending Magi slid out.

Amell couldn't bring herself to speak. She looked at him with wide eyes, jaws unhinged, ashen expression asking the questions her voice couldn't quite master.

The Enchanter was silent. His robes were plain, unadorned with senior status, face possessed of a natural calm. There were no signs of struggle – clothing, shaggy red hair and patchy beard straight – his hands free of scorch or bloodstains. There was hardly a flinch of personality on the man. He must've undergone his own Harrowing a decade ago, perhaps – inured to the process, accustomed to lyrium exposure, eyes only now beginning to darken with age. But his mouth twitched upwards at the hectic young apprentice's stare.

He gave a little smile, and a little nod.

Karl walked off and left Reema standing there, heart hurtling itself against her chestbone, dry tongue stuck to her palate. Or, at least, that's what she told them.

Templars carried Finn out a few minutes later – limp, dripping sweat beads, but otherwise alive. And a mage.

**-oOo-**

"You OK, Blondie?" The dwarf that asked it jolted Anders out of his memory and made him clap both hands onto an edge of bar top.

_The Hanged Man _was your typical Lowtown filth-pit; high-ceilinged, smelling of charcoal and sapwood, a mix of liquor stains and warm colors. Reds spun into oranges and the faded brown of old planks. Tapestries dotted with cigar burns flapped on the walls, looking dejected. Chairs snapped under rowdy patrons. Daggers stuck themselves into every free inch. Mead spilt on low-cut blouses. Ale splotches that darkened tablecloths were indistinguishable from the leftover blood of old tavern brawls. Loose women, bruisers, idle miners and petty thieves stumbled over one another just about as far as the eye could see, elbows rubbing in mealtime crowds. Oh, yes – the inn had a fair share of dirt, all right. Actually, its _beer_ was the cleanest part of the entire kit-and-caboodle… cool, amber, and frothing over mug lips. Damned Justice wouldn't let him get drunk anymore – the uptight, pedantic ass – or Anders would've taken advantage of that fact. As it was, he could glug down whole steinfulls of what-the-hells-ever without feeling so much as a wee bit fuzzy.

Didn't do wonders for his stomach. Won him a lot of drinking contests, though.

_Still_, it wasn't all bad. There was undeniable character that set this watering hole apart from others of its caliber… a certain flair, edges both rough and colorful at once. Annie-Lynn would've been right at home, the apostate decided.

The more he thought about it, the more _The Hanged Man_ began to seem like one giant crude Kirkwall joke. Its namesake creaked over the door, macabre and laughable at once.

Sort of like the dwarf who was looking up at him then, brows scrunched, a wary expression of concern on that rocklike shaven face.

"_What_?" the healer snarled. He hadn't really meant to, but then again, Anders also hadn't understood quite how menacing his shoulders currently were – hunched up around both ears, forearms digging into the counter, auburn stare boring holes through ring-stains in murderous madman fashion. He hadn't realized how far forward he was sitting on that cheap stool. And he also hadn't noticed how nervous energy was making his thighs jingle against the countertop at about one hundred miles per hour.

"Well," the dwarf said, rubbing his large, ungainly chin. He considered. This stranger was surprisingly well-spoken, proceeding in a gravelly tone that rang a little too smooth for anyone – Orzammite, Ferelden, Dalish or otherwise. It was a storyteller's tone: wit, foreshadowing and an unreliable narrator. His nose looked like it'd been broken at least twice. "If you'll pardon my asking – I don't usually make a habit of sidling up to spastic mages in pubs – but you look like you don't quite fit in with our general clientele."

Anders fumbled. "How… how would you know I'm a mage? How dare you just stroll up to someone and suggest that?" he demanded, trying to sound authoritative – feathers bunching, pulse thwacking his temples. It was somewhat difficult when panic began to creep its way into the runaway's brain. Justice kicked at his flight-or-flight instinct. "Do you even know who I am?"

The dwarf gave him a crooked, patronizing, Cheshire grin.

"Saint Anderaste, please. _Everyone_ in Darktown knows who and what you are. I just have the added benefit of knowing what you look like."

Anders imagined he looked as nonplussed as he felt. "How? Who told you that? Who's spying on me – is it templars?" the healer ordered, twisting around, more teeth than diplomacy. His voice was hushed but severe, threatening as it could manage given the circumstances. Stress helped. He stood, knees stringy, banging his fist on the bar again; someone down the way cussed as a wine glass almost lost its contents all over their lap. The mage didn't tote his staff around for obvious reasons, but had a surgical knife tucked inside a flap of coat… not that he would've needed it to turn some interloping rogue into a skeleton. "Do you work for them? Do you work against them? What do you want from me? Because if you think this is going to be easy, you are about to be sorely-"

A sigh. "Stone, you _are_ paranoid," the dwarf observed, and shook his head – a pitying gesture. One large hand patted the stool again, gesturing for Anders to sit down. Earrings and a gold-tipped, well-oiled crossbow glistened in the torchlight. Buttons winked on his heavy jacket. He didn't have much business calling anyone _Blondie_ in that degenerating tone. "Not that this heroic bristling isn't in-character, and all, but why don't you take it down a notch before we get collared? I'm speaking only for myself. And, ah. As far as public images go, you have to admit…" A critical up-and-down glance. "The 'blond with the big boots' _isn't_ that hard to pick out." Then, mumbled: "Disappointing when you mishear it, though, let me tell you…"

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" the apostate barked, not in a particularly jovial temper this evening. His jaw stiffened. Justice was just about finished with this dead-end wordplay, and Anders wasn't far behind him.

"See, that's where I get back to _me_ asking the questions. Suffice to say, I'm a well-meaning patron with more than a passing interest in this fine establishment. And I get a little antsy when I see spell-casters come in looking like they're about to start slinging fireballs every which way. So, moving back…what are you doing skulking around Lowtown? It's not the viscount's square at noon, I admit, but there are one or two templars down here."

_Focus_.

"I'm looking for a man named Varric Tethras," Anders said, uneasily sitting back down. "I need to speak with him urgently, and was told to come here. You seem to talk a great deal. Do you know where I could find him?"

A cavalier shrug was his answer. "Oh, I'm sure you don't want anything to do with that lay-about. He's completely worthless. Nary an honest coin to his name. Certainly not worth your time or ill feelings, serrah mage."

"All the same, I need to see him. If you can't help me, please leave me alone." _Emphatic turn-away. _He might as well have grunted "Scram, stumpy," and slammed a door.

"Just what do you need to see him for?" the character asked, choosing to ignore any apostate moodiness. "Someone set you out to kill him?"

Anders shook the negative. He could've been offended, but it'd cost effort the man didn't have to spare with his psyche wound in knots. "No, not kill him. I'm no mercenary. I need his assistance in contacting a… well, a certain person."

"And who is this – I'm just going to guess from the way you're giving that knothole the evil eye – extremely unlucky person?"

He swallowed.

"Her name is Hawke," the mage confessed, knuckles aching against discount wood polish, because he didn't know what else to do. His hands squeezed. "I just need to talk – that's all – but now I can't seem to find her. She's not home. I've walked by four times already and the house is dark." (_Three times more than he dared with the Chantry dogging about. He couldn't bring himself to knock on the door_.) "Understand this can't wait; it _has_ to be tonight. I was told to call on her here. I was told she could help me."

The dwarf let out one more lengthy, powerful sigh.

"Barkeep," he called, flagging down the scraggly 'tender, jerking a thumb. "Beer for my friend with the nervous tick. Put it on my tab."

Varric punched Anders in the knee.

"You wait here, Blondie. One short-order protagonist coming right up."

**-oOo-**

_Finn was Harrowed on the second of August._

Roughly one week later, they took Anders – twenty-one, restless, and an active practitioner of the "let's get it done with" mentality. The templars came for him during breakfast hours; Greagoir wanted their next batch of cocky young apprentices to see. He laughed and asked to finish his toast. He gulped another mouthful of coffee, tossed a flippant wave, then sauntered off with a blasé attitude and hands shaking in his pockets – knowing they wanted him to die. He was insolent and terrified. For a moment, the young mage thought his last spoken words would be _Getting a little handsy there, aren't you, Ser Rylock?_ But he lived.

Then they took Petra.

She was seventeen years old.

"You can't do this!" Reema had screamed at them, uselessly shoving Ser Carroll's gardbrace. It barely moved him – a flat-palmed, furious push that hit sixty-pound steel. She'd glanced wildly from Senior Enchanter Leorah to the gathered knights, none of whom would console or explain. Their grim instructor only looked away. "This is murder! She's a just a girl! You're going to kill her!"

Carroll leered, so she shoved him again – the equivalent of a sparrow throwing itself against a glass window. Her face was outrage red from temples to collarbone.

"We follow the Knight-Commander's orders, Miss Amell," Hadley said evenly, his hand closing around Petra's wrist. She allowed herself to be lifted from the common room sofa and towed away like a blank-faced nursery school child. Writing tablets, still wet with ink, tumbled off her lap and clattered the carpet. "Please don't make this more of an episode than the Harrowing process already is; you'd be wasting your time arguing with us. If you have issues with this Circle's business, take it up with Irving."

"I'm taking it up with you," she spat, fingers sinking into the stunned apprentice's other sleeve. It tripped her. Firstfall stumbled – caught by them, a hambone snagged between fox and watch-hound. A cough fell out of the young woman. Ser Carroll reached for Reema's robe scruff. Anders shot up from his seat, chair legs screeching loudly against the tile.

"She isn't ready," Wick was shouting, struggling against the gauntlet that wrapped itself in a purple fistful of cloth. Their recreation chamber had fallen deadly silent now. A guard by the library door was striding swiftly towards them, metal clanking, and Amell kicked out with a slippered foot when Carroll's burly arm snared around her middle and lifted the angry trainee midair. Jet locks bristled, half-feral. She would have bit him were it not for the inch of iron. She might have scalded him had they all been witness to this travesty – had they Jowan, Godwin, and Finn. It was likely no coincidence Greagoir planned to apprehend Petra while half their group was at lakeside drills. "Leave her be! _I'm_ ready; take me! Take me if you want your mage so badly! Leave her – Stop that, you fat whoreson. Get your paws off me." A woefully one-sided scuffle; Reema's arms were pinned to her sides so swiftly it looked like more of a pathetic bear-hug than an actual fight. "You're sending her to an early grave!"

Hadley sighed, somber – he waved instructions to carry the fitful pupil away. "To her room, please, lads. Mind you don't hurt her."

"You can't _do_ this! They can't do this to you, Petra; don't let them make you. I'll tell everyone! They won't get- Get out of my hair, you son-of-a…!" She was unable to finish, shut-off by the closing door.

The room stared.

It was only when they turned back to her, one massive glove resting gently on the apprentice's back, that Petra started crying.

"And am I going to have a problem with you as well, Serrah Anders?" It was only then that Anders realized he was still standing up, hands clenched, unnatural coldness flaring between his fisted fingers.

It was only then that he assembled enough thought to speak, Ser Hadley staring flatly from across that quiet stretch of space. "You realize this is an execution," the new mage said, forcibly retaining calm, unable to keep the hateful rasp from his voice. Nails were digging welts into his palm heels. "You are Harrowing her too young. You might as well cut her head off her shoulders."

"And you realize this isn't within my jurisdiction. If you don't have confidence in me, young ser, then vest some in your friend and in our First Enchanter. And you can trust that – when it comes to this day – I know far more about magic than you, boy."

The templar hadn't meant it as an insult. Anders, while cheeky beyond most officials' comfort zones, had never been marked as dangerous. Irving didn't Harrow students he felt were threatening to their order, after all – for though the act was tragic with any promising apprentice, it was always a disgrace to break protocol and Tranquil a fully-fledged mage. So, yes. He had looked beyond those juvenile pranks, the harmless harassments of their sentinels, to judge the mature man this wayward lad could soon become. Greagoir meant well, sincerely. Yet the Knight-Commander wielded a temper far too stern to see in Circle youth the positive qualities his old colleague often did. Anders might have been irritating to anyone in the position of a respectable authority, true, but he was _not_ maleficar material. He was in good social standing, moderate in academics. He was well-liked by his fellows in the Tower, generally lifting their spirits. People responded to the boy's informality. And, though he scoffed at Wynne's suggestions – preferring lightning spells to medicine – his First Enchanter thought this wry character might make a fine healer someday.

Believe that no one had expected anything like this, least of all Anders himself.

Chandeliers puffed out. Painted windows shattered around their panes. It was only after the destructive fact that Anders recognized exactly how badly that statement infuriated him, felt his hands flare mana, and processed that he'd lifted all two-hundred-thirty pounds of Ser Hadley twelve telekinetic feet into the air before bringing him crashing down.

As it turns out, Irving was right – Petra had been ready. But now there was broken glass littering the ground, and there was new talk of Tranquiling Anders.

**-oOo-**

The apostate lingered there, watching condensation roll down his beer glass, not knowing quite what he was waiting for – but having nothing else to do. He had expected to sit in _The Hanged Man_ for another hour before nerves finally drove him out. Alternately, Varric Tethras might've led Chantry bird-doggers to him, a threat that never ceased whilst one's phylactery collected dust in Denerim's storage. You couldn't stagnate. Anders fully expected they'd chain his hands to his neck and off and drag him off to Aeonar soon; no matter how quietly you worked, settling in cities made capture only a matter of time. (And he could've been quieter.) A Fereldan knight might've hauled him back to the Tower again, but delusions weren't permitted in this place – incarceration here led to shackles and death.

This _was_ Kirkwall, though. He probably wouldn't make it to the Mages' Prison. Hells. He probably wouldn't make but a few feet past Meredith's guillotine steps. Darktown would've been angry if someone sent their new doctor's head rolling down the planks, and that was gratifying, but let's be honest – for practical-minded people, a live healer was better than a dead saint any day.

"_I would challenge that claim, mage. One need not read much history to do so. You underestimate the power a martyr can have upon-"_ Anders made it clear he wasn't listening before Justice finished his thought. The apostate took a quaff with wrists that shook. It didn't even taste satisfying. _'Meddlesome spirit.'_

Expecting to linger, biting his lips, Anders was surprised to see Hawke thud heavily down the second-floor stairwell.

She was equally surprised to see him, stare wide and vacant. His elbows leapt off the bar top, scooting backwards, perplexed. "What are you doing here?" they both said in tandem.

"My uncle was just poisoned," the girl reminded him with a thin expression. She hopped the bottom two steps and slogged over to where he sat, dark hair slumping out of a messy bun at the base of her neck. "We're staying here for a few weeks, until the City Watch resolves this. Master Varric has been kind enough to lend us rent." Having explained herself, Hawke moved directly to business. She remained upright, shaken from the still quarters of their private suite, the sleeves of her too-large lounging tunic spilling over both hands. It looked like burlap died black. Standing akimbo, raggedy and commanding, the Fereldan rather resembled good old Nate… if you'd only have attached a few lockpicks to that belt... "He said you were looking after me. What exactly do you need? I hadn't expected you so soon."

"Neither did I. I'm sorry to have to come to you with this, but…"

Hawke had glanced away before he could finish, eyeing the upstairs rooms. Her lips pursed. "Ah. Let's be on before Carver sees us," she muttered. And, surprising him with her brusqueness of manners – Hawke took Anders by one arm, pulled him to his feet, and steered the mage outside with a curt palm heel pushing his back. "We can talk better out here."

_Well. All right, then._

"Does your brother not like me?" he asked, brows shooting towards his hairline, almost tripping out _The Hanged Man_'s door when a boot toe caught uneven pavement. Her rough hands were nearly as undimplomatic as a templar's. With brown tresses tied into submission, he could see where that long scar trailed along the cheekbone in full, only a centimeter or two from grazing one ear.

The woman snorted. "My brother doesn't like anyone in this rat-hole. Don't take offense. Let's move on by the boxes, there – better angle. Won't be able to spot us through a window."

"That bad?"

A _look_ was his only answer.

"How, ah. How is your uncle? Gamlen, wasn't it?" Anders thought inquiring after his own patient's health might make him seem like less of an ass, in the wake of what he was about to ask of her. Hawke thumped onto a crate, jingling the bottles inside. It was a chilly evening. Her eye whites gleaned like fishhooks in the dusty dark.

"He is alive and hateful as ever, and isn't worth the time it took to mention him. What do you need?" she asked again, staring. He glanced down at his feet. He paced a few steps, rubbed his neck. He could not sit down.

The words were hard to find. So he handed her the letter – a crumpled, sweaty roll of paper in his coat pocket. She read it with no expression registering on that somber, southern face.

"You want to smuggle a mage out from beneath the Knight-Commander's nose?" Hawke wondered, frowning, her eyes fixed on the message as though it might reveal some hidden plot. She leant forward on her makeshift throne.

Anders swallowed. "I want to spare my friend," he told her.

And then he told her his plan: a false order, written by his hand, to bring each prisoner to Kirkwall's chapel for a private midnight consultation – so they might serve as an example of their sins. A painstaking forgery of the Knight-Captain's signature, copied from a missive he'd stolen some months earlier. A seal melted off that same missive's envelope and transferred to this one. Walter disguised as a mail-carrier and sent to the Knight-Jailor's doorstep. A stained glass window greased and slipped beneath, a length of sturdy rope, a drawn-on Tranquil brand and a smooth escape. It could be done in under ten minutes, the apostate swore, if all went well. All _would_ go well, no doubt – because there was no other alternative. It was a rushed but clever plan… one with more than enough tact to skirt around priestesses and overworked templar guards. All he needed was an opportunity. An opportunity, and a lookout – a solid, trustworthy, eagle-eyed woman, he said – who would not run at the flash of Chantry armor nor call for City Watch.

"Tomorrow it could be me," Anders had pressed, feeling his eyebrows scrunch, lungs filling with Justice's approval. "It could be you. It might as well be any one of us. You don't have to help me, but this is something I am going to do."

"When?"

"As soon as possible. Tonight. Right now – after we're through here."

Hawke blinked.

"I'll help you," she mumbled, stood up, and dusted off the front of her trousers. Bark-colored eyes looked through him. Her mouth was a flat line; her voice was deep and stern. "You don't need to preach to me. The mages' battles aren't mine to fight. But if he matters to you – honestly – I will help you free him."

Anders thought about it.

"I don't think anyone has mattered more," he said.

**-oOo-**

_The templars called him a _runner_._

The first time Anders fled the Tower, he was seven years old. It was a warm, comfortable late afternoon, sun slanting bright against young cedar trees. The children had been out at an early alchemical lesson under the supervision of their watchful Enchanter. They picked sloppy handfuls of elfroot, milkweed and blueberries, shaking the dirt clods off flailing roots and onto short pants. He'd wandered off after a bunny-rabbit on accident, scampering into the high, dry summer brush. And when the boy suddenly noticed he was alone – how there were no robe trains, armor shins, hemming voices – he was not afraid. He had been filled with such an intense, wide-eyed sense of agency that when Wynne's footsteps grew near, his heart began to drop. She called his name in shrill tones. Anders covered his mouth with both hands and sank deeper into a mulberry plant, wishing he could shrink to the size of that rabbit and run, hardly daring to breathe.

The second time Anders fled the Tower, he was ten and wounded, his pride stinging worse than the boy's swollen nose. Young Cullen had picked a fistfight with him and won it. So the little mage dusted himself off the ground and hurled his nemesis back with a compact, unpolished Mind Blast. When Enchanter Torrin found out, he'd believed the limping Chantry-child's story rather than a willful apprentice. He slapped Anders in the courtyard, in front of everyone – the sound echoed off cement and lakewater. Furious, the boy waited until that harried bastard's robes disappeared into Kinloch Hold, then scrambled over a garden wall and tore off, cupping his bloody nose. Hadley saw it and ran him down within two minutes. His miniature revolt ended with the hissing, spitting lad hucked back to his room, squirming sidelong under a templar's massive arm.

The third time Anders fled the Tower, he was thirteen and in a fit of adolescent pique. He despised the templars, could bear their guff no longer –so the hotheaded young man said, at any rate – resented his weak-kneed Circle teachers, who bent to the whip because they'd known nothing else. There was no sense of consequence or mortality to a raging boy. They'd been at quarterstaff practice, the wind picked up off Lake Calenhad and brought with it a thick scent of green pine, and Anders wanted _out_. No more mewling at the Knight-Commander's heels. To hell with all of that. He'd hurled his stave, thundered down the dock on flat soles, and simply leapt into the cold, cold water – barely able to swim. Robes made him sodden and heavy – half-drowning, half-paddling in the deep. It was so blue his hands looked like ice mist. They caught him three days afterward, hiding in a thicket close by; Ser Bartholomew literally dragged the scrawny apprentice out of a moss-covered log. A stamp appeared on his file later that night – Greagoir wrote _flight risk_ under his name.

The first time Anders _escaped_ the Tower – true, heart-deep escape – he was twenty-one, a month past his Harrowing, and spared by the charity of a discontent stranger: Karl Thekla.

He had been in shock when Cullen and Rylock shackled him, wrists locked together like some sort of Tevinter slave, and shut him in that isolation cell. It was cold stone. It was quiet. It was exceedingly dark, the only light skirting in through a single arrow loop no wider than the mage's thumb. Anders sat on the ragged cot because he did not know what else to do, elbows on his knees, staring helplessly at that colossal iron door. Menacing, solid metal – a foot thick. Magic strapped the locks. There was no thought of finagling his way out, for he was sorely alone, deaf to apprentice chatter or kitchen fires or training sessions or even the constant scrape of templars sharpening their blades. Wind howled viciously outside, but the lad could not feel it through this straw-thin window. He listened – scared himself with all he could not hear. He hunched as the chill began to seep its way bone-deep. He counted boot steps down that twisting stairwell in dozens. _Dozens_ until they disappeared; not stopping, but descending out of range. He… must've been somewhere near the very top.

Anders had been disciplined many times before. As a child, he'd been backhanded more often than a sane troublemaker would care to remember; Enchanters banished him to his room dinnerless on a regular basis. Cleaning up the meal hall was commonplace. Irritated instructors also made him very proficient at line-writing, particularly: _I Will Not Sass My Learnèd Masters_ and _I Will Not Improvise the Sunday Chant_. Boy got the Freezy Chair a few times, too. ("Go ahead," he dared Captain Myron the last time, twelve and insufferable, claiming to have lost all semblance of feeling in his flanks long ago. "Bring on the ice throne!" They'd unbuckled him about a half-hour later, teeth chattering, blue, trousers around his ankles and – the laughing templars agreed – more eager to please than anyone had ever seen him.)

And then there was that marvelous time he and Jowan stole Ser Priscilla's brassiere while she was washing and sling-shot it onto the bathhouse roof… but _that_ was worth it.

This wasn't. This wasn't funny or needling or satisfyingly sour in any way – there was no snickering and cocksure declaration that a few stodgy holy-paddlers couldn't scare him into model behavior. Anders did not know what this was. The mage could not tell where they had taken him, seeing only white sky through the tiny slat. He did not even know enough to feel afraid – not yet.

He had done wrong, but never like this. He had never hurt a templar.

He hadn't meant to. He hadn't! He had only wanted to teach Hadley a lesson – blind, puffed-up, dumb ox of a man – and he had been so _furious_, so _sick_ of it…

It was some time later when Irving and Greagoir came to speak with him, each in tandem, both grave-faced and frighteningly disappointed. They asked him questions that had no right answers. This was all Anders could tell them; that in truth, it _hadn't_ been an accident, but it had been a terrible mistake. That it was his own free will, but that he had not been thinking clearly. Attacking one's guardians was bad, yes, but be that as it may... there was no blood magic involved. He was just angry. Just angry! Don't you ever get angry? Do you know what he said to me? Demons had no hold on him, Maker as his witness – brashness did, but it was only but a moment. They were taking Petra. She was his friend. What did they expect? Prodding them around like cattle, dragging off unprepared girls like bleating lambs, expecting obedience! No, he didn't mean that. He really was very sorry. Was Hadley all right? I'll never do it again. I swear.

"_No, Anders. You won't,"_ was all the Knight-Commander had for him.

Perhaps a day passed, or perhaps only hours – the mage could not sleep or focus with these chains rubbing coldly into his wrists – but it was nightfall when that door opened again.

Anders leapt up, but his cuffs weighted him down.

The man who entered was somber, slow-moving, and looked at this boy with a wince that betrayed more than he meant it to. Darkness had deepened the angles around his tired eyes, making them appear sleepy and careworn. Sloppily-cut red hair was fading prematurely grey – you could see the blond flecks in his beard. Above all else, though, there was a drag on this stranger that aged him – made footsteps scuff the floors, movements lag – as though he were moving underwater. A mage, no doubt, but not a Libertarian. Anders had seen Chantry monks looking like that: as though the world pushed down upon their shoulders at every gust. He might've been forty – seemed a decade older. Morals sunk his flesh into the bones beneath. He wore a funereal expression that troubled the young prisoner more than Greagoir's vagueness or Irving's unhappy sighs.

He saw Anders standing there in manacles and pressed both palm heels to his brow.

"Good God! You're barely more than a boy!"

The shout had scared him more than _The Boy _could say.

It was a source of mutual confusion. Anders's visitor stepped backwards, blinking, head shaking wearily as he absorbed the situation. The Enchanter's voice sounded as exhausted as the arthritic hands that swiped down his face. "This is unconscionable. I expected you would be young, so soon out of your Harrowing, but… I hoped the apprentices were exaggerating. I don't see how they could've come to this. I don't see how anyone could."

"Who are you? Did the templars send you to sentence me? Fine. Good. I'll do whatever they want," he was quick to swear, daring no more jokes with these miserable steel restraints clinking at every move. They pulled the stringy muscles in his arms until both were a constant ache. "When can I get out of here?"

"I'm not here to sentence you. I wish that I were. But it is out of my scope. Only the Knight-Commander can do so at this point."

"Then what are you here for? Am I being demoted, then? They're knocking me back to apprentice. I knew it," Anders huffed, crossing. Though his scowl said otherwise, the mage would've been happy to hear a 'yes' – hells, he would've kissed Andraste's dainty statue feet in their courtyard if downgrading was the extent of his troubles. Fear blundered on before he'd gotten a response. "So that's that. Well, no use crying about it. They want you to mentor me, I suppose? Grand. Say what you've got to say, let me down into the chapel and I'll get to making my penance. Yes?"

The look from his so-called mentor was painful.

Anders's heart plunged into the pit of his gut.

"Oh. No. Are they going to kill me? They're going to kill me, aren't they!" he cried, clutching his ribs, despair wringing the youth's voice sharp and terrified. An involuntary step backwards towards the frigid wall. His knees felt like buckling – almost did. His throat closed. It was suddenly impossible to breathe; air gasped into lungs to no effect. He could've been sick – would have been sick – had there been no interruption. _Final rites! They were giving him his final rites!_ And then, once he'd satisfactorily repented to the Maker and Holy Bride, they'd dunk him in holy water, shear his hair, bare his neck, thunk his head onto the basement chopping block and-

"They aren't going to kill you," the mage said, eyebrows furrowing – in no way sounding like a comfort. Anders thumped weakly onto the bed, padding his forehead with a sleeve, shackles clacking on his shaking hands. Sweat had drenched him in a matter of seconds.

"They aren't." But he was already wan as a ghost, the panic knot making his gullet incredibly sore.

"No," the man said. "Far worse."

It was getting difficult to hear with so much blood rushing in Anders's ears, complexion paler than the boy's blond hair. He tried to swallow. His tongue was like cotton, parched and gluing to his teeth. He couldn't get these words to make sense.

"But they can't," was all Anders could really come up with.

"You mean to say it's not legal, and that's true. But make no mistake: they _can_, and most likely will. It has happened to many mages it shouldn't have, Harrowed or not; simply because you are _you_ doesn't stop it from happening again. When the Chantry has cause, they neutralize. Right or wrong – you gave them cause today."

"But that' not _me_! I'm not supposed to be a Tranquil! I passed all their tests – you can tell them. You have to tell them not to do it!" he shouted, beating heart now lodged firmly in his windpipe, uncaring and no longer cognizant of the fact these demands were made of a stranger. Air did nothing for him. His skin burned; he couldn't tell if it was frozen or sweltering. _'This must be what the moment before death feels like.'_

The elder snorted. "And who do think I am?"

"You're Karl," Anders said, emptied, shock subduing him – even as his long hands quaked. He was getting dizzy. "Reema – my friend, Reema Amell. She knows you. Sat in on a defense lesson from you once. Your name's Karl Thekla, isn't it?"

Karl nodded.

"They wanted to Harrow Petra! It's probably already underway!" occurred to him like a horse hoof in the stomach. "She's so small – you have to stop it."

The Enchanter shook his head. "I am sorry. Your friend must do what she is able. Here and now, I can help _you_."

"Then you'll speak to them for me? To Irving and Greagoir. On my behalf," Anders asked, hardly daring to hope, on his feet without conscious action. "You'll talk some sense. You won't let them go through with this. You won't let them, will you?"

"They have never listened to me. But you can. There is only one thing I can do for you, and you cannot afford to waste it."

He took the boy's forearms in both hands – the cuffs fell off them, and hit the floor.

**-oOo-**

Both hands on those gaunt shoulders, window ajar, fire crumpled to ash in Kirkwall Chantry's dark antechamber – and Karl stared at Anders blankly, as though he did not recognize the furrowed face.

"Don't you remember me?" was all the mage could say; he repeated it dumbly, met with bland indifference. "You have to remember me."

"I am sorry; I don't know you." Grey hair, thinning in awkward tufts, a knocked-out tooth, a pommel's scar beaten against that distinguished Enchanter's face – all Anders could focus on was the brand welded deeply into his forehead. It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. It did not register; burn marks were a horrible reality that dropped the healer's stomach, the culmination of his worst fears plied upon a man who'd been a hero. _The only hero_. He shook him – once, twice – each jolt harder and more insistent than the next. Karl's Gallows robes wrinkled beneath desperate fingers. "Please stop shaking me, serrah."

"You can't be serious. Come on! Think! You have to remember!"

Shouting endangered them all, but Anders found himself decreasingly aware of the sisters at their midnight meditations downstairs, ambivalent about whatever templar were standing guard somewhere past that bolted door. Hawke loitered just outside, skulking beneath a snuffed lantern, attention trained to the great marble steps – fifteen minutes, he had said, no more – but she had since become an accessory. Everything focused in on Karl – every gram of delayed horror. Karl only blinked. Prayer incense had smudged his hands. The stupid tunic they made him wear would've been more at place on an Andrastan apostle. There was no comprehension or emotion in that insipid pair of eyes, now whiter than any other color. He smelled like manufactured holiness – like an appendage of this place. He looked at the apostate like a piece of well-worn furniture would. He was indistinguishable from the cold flagstone, bronze chains, swinging braziers and paper-thin rugs of this grim oratory that more closely resembled a holding cell.

Anders had opened that loose window just as fast as he dared, wincing at its creak. He'd crawled in quietly. And the apostate spotted him, sure as daylight hit those brass domes overhead – older, haggard, deteriorating – it'd been a view of his kneeling back, but he'd _known_. He snuck up from behind clapped a rag over his old rescuer's mouth to cut off the shriek. He twisted him around.

The sunstar stamped on his forehead outshone all the dramatic changes that bled this once-kind face.

He had come this far. He had to try. He couldn't have failed – failed even _before_ this mess had started. "Karl, it's me! It's _me_. You know me. My name's Anders. The boy you helped, remember? The boy in the tower…?"

Just there – a flicker of nostalgia across the Tranquil's numbed features. His answer was a semi-lucid murmur. His brow wrinkled with an attempt to make these claims concrete. There was not a strand of red to be found amongst the exhausted silver hues that had overtaken his chin and cheeks. "The boy in the tower…"

All the Magi knew of lyrium and Tranquiling be damned; those words – said with that clear, cohering character – inspired foolish optimism. Impossible hope flared in Anders's chest. "Yes, yes! That's right – that's it exactly. It's me!"

But the old man smiled – missing cuspid a black, gaping hole in his bleary grin. "No… Anders is a boy. You are too grown to be him."

'_He's addled.'_ He was addled, fine – but rational, mind still intact. Feelings had been detached from his thoughts, but the core memories were still alive – still bouncing around somewhere beneath the mists. It was all right; they could work with addled. A breath puffed out of the mage, hollow relief. He smiled back, thankful for a grain of recognition, fingers tightening around Karl's weak arms. "You don't look so good yourself, messere. Come – I'm taking you out of this place."

"I do not think the templars would allow it…" The ex-Enchanter was stumbling, heels hitting bumps in Grand Cleric Elethina's sparse chapel carpet, the no-longer-a-boy's grip bitterly cold around his wrist.

_Tranquil_ – in Anders's need to right this part of his past, he did not think through or accept the dead soul that name implied.

"Not even a little. It doesn't matter. I'm helping _you_ this time. See – it's all figured out, so you needn't worry." A roll of rope dropped off the healer's shoulder; he quickly affixed it to a metal torch bracket, tested his weight against brick and string, then tossed the excess outside. It hit silently. Hopefully Hawke was still waiting; he could use her help assisting Karl to the ground in one piece. "We'll climb down the wall, here… bit of a drop, but it'll have to do. I've got a safe place. You can stay with me until we figure out a way to get you out of this city. Be quick about it, though. We can't dally. Yeah?"

"I cannot go."

A snort – his whispers grew harsh, bullying. They ignored the truth. It was easier to see a stupefied Karl than an empty shell. "Hells yes, you can. There's a friend of mine waiting for us and the courtyard's unguarded. Just keep up as best you're able-"

Anders grabbed for the man's sleeve, but it leapt away from him. Shaking hands rolled into stern fists. The moment of clarity was gone.

Karl was stone.

"You must go back to the Tower now, Anders," he said, gaze hardening, tone again losing the sliver of humanness it had regained. His memories shifted and coated in cast-iron. That face changed – wrinkles, tints, vestigial emotions – he saw it happen, like dipping a sword from forge to troth. The voice was feeble, but it was icy. "You should not be here outside. It is against the rules."

Idiotic hope fell, inevitably, to dismay.

The urgency with which he operated until now turned to growing fear, tightening Anders's pitch. He was still an apostate. An apostate, natural enemy of the Chantry's order – standing in a sacred building, staffless, pockets filled with lint and nothing more. "How can you say that?" The mage wasn't sure how _he_ could say anything, acid creeping up his throat, arm hairs standing on end. "You saved me, Karl – the barracks tunnel, remember? You have to remember. The barracks tunnel? In Kinloch Hold. _Kinloch Hold_, in Ferelden; you know it. We lived there – you broke me out."

The struggle that gripped his face was more painful than either the austerity or the plainness had been. He wanted to remember. Some facet of him, seared out but not extinct, wanted badly to answer these pleas with something that was not blind obedience. "Yes. No. Yes. You must leave now, boy. The templars will not like seeing you wander out of your cell. Knight-Commander Greagoir… Meredith… she has passed her judgment." Confusion twisted his mouth, winced beneath Karl's lids. The Tranquil was caught in a shadow of their former lives – could not quite rectify these differences, discordant and unfamiliar. He could not force it to make sense. "The rites begin at dawn. They will come for you if you are still here."

"And they'll slay us both if we're seen! We don't have _time_ for this, Karl-"

"It isn't right," the man mumbled, "to Tranquil a boy so young… barely past your Harrowing…"

Anders seized his lapel forcefully, jerking forward. "Karl, snap out of it!"

"You should escape this place. It isn't right." His head shook, mutters lilting towards inarticulate rambling. "Hardly older than a child."

"I'M not the one escaping! YOU are." Impatient, spat-out commands. The healer's teeth began grinding. His nostrils flared, jaw muscle twitching. A soft, curious clank downstairs – it was impossible to trace. _'Maker's blood, not like this. Not so stupid and meaningless. It can't wind up like _this_.'_

"But they will kill you if they catch you. You must fly from here as fast as your feet can carry you."

He growled: "You're coming with me, whether you like it or not."

"I am too old, but you are so young. They cannot do this to you. I don't understand how anyone could. It isn't right," Karl told him, even as the mage lunged forward, sunk his fists into either side of that prisonlike Gallows collar, and began to backpedal towards a window that no longer led to simple freedom. Heels drove themselves into the rug, resisting. "It isn't _right_," he insisted, fingers straining to pry Anders's away – clawing as though the apostate had taken hold of his neck and wrung it. Unfeeling eyes darted wildly about. Nails bit. Blood rose beneath the skin. He would not let go.

Karl, panic welling for reasons he did not know, fought against rescue – frightened by that ink-black sky beyond the Chantry glass. He scanned for an exit. He smashed a palm heel into Anders's jaw.

Justice made his voice rumble.

"I will GET YOU OUT of their keeping if I have to GAG AND CARRY YOU. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" the apostate menaced, glare flashing an otherworldly cobalt, and his suddenly inconsiderate arm hooked around the old man's neck like a guardsman's chain. They hefted backwards, staggering. A lantern crashed off the wall shelf. Rescue had become abduction.

Karl screamed.

**-oOo-**

"_An apostate's life is often brief and it is always bloody. They will hunt you forever. You must know that. You will never be able to rest again. You cannot have a home, for linger too long in any place, and they will find you. You cannot have a family, for love someone too much to lose, and they will bleed them for you. And it will be there, always on your mind, always eating at the back of your heart: you will run until you are dead. Some would not wrongly say that it is hardly worth the fight. An apostate's life is compounded hardships… but it is the only one that you may live."_

"Listen to me," Karl had instructed, leading Anders beneath the fallen rafters and through those cramped, cobwebbed corners of a half-sealed emergency tunnel. It was difficult to see. His knuckles seemed to glow in the suffocating darkness, stark ash against cold, rocky nothing. "Are you listening? You must remember exactly what to do once you clear these gates. They will never stop chasing you, but don't despair – for you _can_ outrun them. If you know how. Stay out of the clustered trees – trees will slow you, and they will catch you. Stay off the flat rocks – the templars will shoot you if they cannot reach you. You should have a head-start if you go without stalling and if you conserve your energy. Clear your head. Don't let them see you. Do not talk to anyone. Run through the river – it will clear your scent from the hounds. Take a horse if you can, and put as much distance between yourself and this Tower as possible, but do not keep it – dogs will follow the larger animal. Keep to the high grass. Don't slow down for anything. Go until you're well within the Bannorn; they'll stop to regroup once you're that far."

The young mage followed in attentive silence until they reached that final door, battered steel and covered in sliding bedrocks. Karl tore moss away. Anders breathed, experiencing the temperature of that free, earthy air that glistened around the exit's edges. If daylight had been waiting outside, its opening would've blinded him. _Maker. _They had deep blue nightfall now, and he still feared it might.

The boy stilled his sweating hands. They reached for the thick black cowl he'd been given, tugging it over his face until coarse cape fabric concealed Anders's clothes and brushed against a sharp nose. His fingers were the only bare patch – the only part of him that might be spotted – but they were also the only defense he had.

"If I make it," the lad offered, grinning nervously beneath his heavy hood, "I'll send you a post."

Karl frowned. The Enchanter's look was grave as he turned that last rusted lock. "Don't. Forget about me," he said. "Forget everything you ever knew about this place."

A squint from the boy. "Why are you doing this, anyway? I'm not your student. You don't know me. They'll kill you if they-"

"Because what makes mages Men is that both must answer to what we believe is right. Go now."

And the enormous door was wrenched away, dirt collapsed inward, fresh air from Calenhad's banks pouring into the dank passageway so swiftly it rawed Anders's lungs. He blinked. He choked.

"_Go_," Karl hissed, shoved him forth, and before he could turn around – the return path was slammed and bolted shut.

He was out in the open air.

He was free.

He ran:

_over the limestone that skittered and scraped; across grey Fereldan mud that caked thickly upon his legs, brought him again and again to hands-and-knees. Through the frigid lakewater that soaked clothes, making him heavy. Beyond the uncut fields, into the woods. _

He ran,

_though he could hear the dogs chasing him and the clank of templar scouts far behind. He splashed through the babbling creeks to wipe off his scent, scattering droplets, slipping, face and fingers plastered in sludge. When the farmlands stretched their wide arms before him, he clung haphazardly to the saddle of a horse, ropes hacked from an unguarded stable – hanging from one side, reins unused, praying because the mage-boy had never ridden before. He fell from it when the barking groped at his ankles, cape catching itself on a stirrup, fluttering off with the mare. The mabari forked away. His legs were numb and bitter. He scrambled up. He ran on, though a knee popped sickeningly where it hit the ground. _

He kept running

_when Kinloch Hold flared up in alert miles behind him, thinking of nothing – not Petra at her Harrowing; not Karl Thekla, who'd had no personal reason to help him; not Reema Amell, whose joyous howl echoed over the knolls, cheering him on from behind a barred window. He felt nothing. His heart hammered, terrified, until all sounds of pursuers drifted into a distant grumble behind him; until the evergreens lost their smell; until sun rays began to push at tree needles, sifting around murky mauve clouds. The sweat and dried muck scalded his pores, stung his forehead, bit at eyes that shone wild and white through the mud._

He did not stop running;

_fatigue pushed the adrenaline into a surreal state of elation as Anders drew further away. Hours passed. Night slid off the country's shoulders to reveal colors, painfully vivid – grass green enough to hurt; maple bark a tangy brown; sky broad and blue like it had never been before, not dragged down by the glass face of Lake Calenhad. He was alone in the sprawling plains. No one – nothing – not a living soul around him. His feet bled inside their shoes; his nose bled; his lips, chapped, bled in thin stripes. Small field bees nipped at him. The lungs inside his chest cramped. The lower half of his body felt like fire. The mental markers he'd set to keep both legs trucking on ceased to motivate him any longer – he did not think he could ever stop again. This was a dream-world. Maybe he was still in his Harrowing, and everything until now had been the product of demons preying upon a hyperactive imagination. Maybe the templars, tired of waiting, had driven a sword into his sleeping shell, and this was purgatory. It didn't matter. If he died now, it would be enough. _

When Anders could run no more, ribs wrenched with pain, he collapsed into the wheat – kernels burnt goldenrod by daybreak over the wild steppes – and he laughed until the tears rolled down his face.

They brought him back to the Tower eighteen months later – but they could never keep him again.

**-oOo-**

He saw the spearhead before the templar.

Ser Lison, as the boy introduced himself – barked, actually – had heard Karl's scream and clattered upstairs, foregoing door handles and simply kicking hinges in. He'd been pink-faced and righteous as was befitting a young man of his station. He glowered at the ragged apostate intruder with fury that disguised his anxiety, demanded answers, and was unsurprised to receive none. Directions came in a short, impatient list: (1) lay down any weapons, (2) lift up your hands, (3) step away from the Circle Tranquil. Anders froze. Rather than surrender, though, instinct pushed him forward; he positioned himself between the templar and templar-captive, Justice sparking at his fingertips, calculating the best armor piece to land a lightning bolt. How many might be stampeding up the chapel stairs, he wondered… how many swords before they overwhelmed this tiny room and ripped him limb from limb?

Lison bared his teeth, grabbed for his sword, but could not draw it past the sheath when he suddenly _choked_.

Anders saw it first.

The candle pillar – heated with minor magics – melted through two layers of steel Chantry breastplate, slid easily through flesh, parted bone, pierced lungs, and poked its nose out the other side, thrusting right between those decorative flares on Lison's holy sword emblem. _A gurgle_. He spit red. He clutched his stomach and glanced down, following Anders's wide brown eyes, taking in the makeshift javelin. Then, finally, a short arm wrapped around his belly and jerked him backwards – impaling the templar halfway down that tall iron candelabra. It was welded straight through him. It didn't budge when he timbered to the floor.

Hawke barely bothered to wipe his blood spray off her face.

"We have to go _now_," she ordered, gesturing toward the murdered knight with a curt jerk of her chin.

"You killed him," Karl said, equally matter-of-fact.

"Self-defense. Listen to your friend. Let's go."

"Hawke," Anders stuttered. He juggled the intensity of her violence – the moral-free duty of repaying a debt. She'd killed to protect her partner, and that was that: cold efficiency that shook his anger back into its rightful sorts. "We can't just jaunt down the main floor – what about the sisters? How… did you even get up here?"

"It's clear. This was the only man on-guard tonight. The few priestesses heard a shout and rushed out for backup – which is why, _again_, we need to leave."

"Let me just…" The healer straightened himself, squaring; he turned to his reluctant friend. That vacant expression was fixated on the skewered lad's body, still oozing its stuffings onto checkered carpet. "Karl. Please," he begged, mouth dry. "You heard her. There's no time – we have to go. I'm not walking out of here without you. If you can be reasoned with at all – if you can comprehend what I'm telling you – you'll come with us, and you'll do it willingly. Do you understand me? Say something."

"He's dead," the Tranquil parroted. "You killed that boy. A templar."

"_Mage_." Hawke stared at him with severe, commanding eyes.

"Just give him one minute. Just let him think…"

"Mage, this is _useless_," she pressed, lancing forward, swiping for Karl's arm much in the same way he had several minutes earlier. She clamped down, winding one fist in the excess of his sleeve. He tugged helplessly against it. He was like a child – barely strong enough to bend the girl at her elbow. "You can't reason with him. You have to know that. Tape his tongue down; take his legs and we'll haul him out."

Anders reached to break a length of bandage off his boot – but something stopped him. He watched them struggle for a moment. Karl swatted at Hawke's small hand with a sloppily fist, requesting she _cease and desist –_ the most opposition a Tranquil could offer. Pitiable strikes glanced off without even gaining notice. It was agonizing. He closed his lids tightly. A long breath whooshed out of the apostate.

"If you're going to leave him, then do it – but we can't waste any more time! Tell me what to do. Make your decision. You have to do it _now_." Hawke did not stop pushing. Blunt nails dug into the ex-Enchanter's garments, reeling in a fish, feeding and contracting her line. He was jerking away now, robe ripping, threads unraveling at the shoulder. Another good pull, another swift tug, and-

Torn cloth dangled in his kidnapper's fingers. Karl stumbled backwards, arms swinging in a wide arc, tipping towards the open window.

Anders caught him – holding tightly to the leather coif.

Another inch – two more seconds, perhaps – and the shrunken man would've tumbled spine-first over the pane to splatter on Hightown's tiled plaza below. He would've broken his back, shattered both knees, cracked his skull. A younger, sturdier mage might've had a decent chance of surviving such a fall; this one, aged by years and dark magic, would've been brained on impact. The healer gasped his relief.

But he looked into Karl's face and saw nothing – not gratitude, not fear – no feeling for the fact he had nearly plummeted to a quick, harsh, untimely end.

Karl was already dead.

"I am sorry," the Tranquil said, blinking cordially at Anders. "Who are you? Perhaps I should summon the templars…"

He let go.


	7. Enough

**Enough**

The run to his clinic was dark.

Anders had been called _chatty_ before – by critical friends (Annie-Lynn Brosca), annoyed rivals (Ser Rylock), and those who were a mix of both (Justice). At idle, the apostate saw no reason to batten down his opinions; sharing them had been a luxury Circle students weren't allowed. At work, they bolstered morale. At enemies' sword-points, a well-placed joke or uncomfortably vague comment might confuse… make them think he knew something worth extracting rather than stomping on spot. Whatever really unflattering jabs Oghren had made about it as they trudged through Amaranthine's countryside, there was no doubt in this man's mind: running his mouth had saved him more than once.

Granted, he'd been fleeing the templars long enough to refrain from wasting air on snarky asides while sprinting away from their ropes. Perhaps connecting these two actions seemed like madness in its own right; but mad or not, a tie existed between them. For all the terror of escapes, there was insane joy, too – a wild satisfaction at outmaneuvering someone else's hunting dogs, and there were plenty who'd enjoy the tang of a rogue mage's blood. Running didn't make him happy – Maker, not even close – but it threw freedom into sharp relief, and that was the hardest-won, most bittersweet victory of all.

But tonight, that familiar path through Darktown was wordless – silent as a grave.

"_What did you do!"_ Hawke had puffed, leaning halfway out the window, stout hands clutching its frame. Anders couldn't stomach a look – not even a quick one. But he didn't have to. Her mouth, tugged open with disgust at the scene down below, was enough. That sickening, dead-weight _thwack_ of splitting backbone as flesh hit the cobbles was enough. He'd hear that sound for the rest of his life. A shiver had racked the nerves that knit his spine together and held them tight. No, he did not need to peer over and see Karl's blood slick on Kirkwall's Chantry courtyard.

Karl was dead, and Anders had killed him – or, at least, let that husk of person die – and he didn't have anything to say.

They ran before the mage could answer. Or perhaps he didn't need to do _that_, either – because Hawke had heard metal approaching, stumbled forward, then all but pushed him down those steep steps and out the chapel door.

She knew what he meant; that silence was enough.

Flight drove them to the city underpinnings by instinct more than any organized effort. Darktown did not spell safety for anyone – fugitives or noble men – but it was shadowy, mazelike, and difficult to navigate. Its channels provided nooks to hide away from broad pauldroned shoulders. Canvass laid gutted open to black tunnels where one could disappear. Howls of both the pained and drunken variety scattered footsteps every which way. But animals burrowed in duress; so did apostates. Sharing space with spiders, lepers and water rats, they took those slumping wooden stairs in leaps, barely stopping or breathing until Anders slammed and bolted his lightless clinic's door.

Out there were emptied alleyways and rancor. Here was nothing: bandage, hay, bloodstains on bare plank operating tables, sawdust that tickled the lungs. One could see very little with no lanterns glowing. Steel surgical tools caught moonlight at frightening angles. Glasses filled with thick, syrupy chemicals and viscous potions that smelled like chlorophyll winked dully on handmade shelves. Spare sheets reeked of ill, malnourished bodies. Drying fern leaves rustled in want of the noise that always choked this now-still warehouse. Stars glistened through the high windows, thatching bled by rainwater, but most of them had been blotted out by night clouds and smog. It was powerfully dark and powerfully quiet. Anders thumped onto the edge of a desk, clutching at his collarbone; he could barely see the glinting edges of Cala Hawke, but could hear her whoosh for breath. The night air had burned their throats so that both healer and refugee were left panting, gripping ribs, eyes a pale red.

Able to feel his insides again, the mage fumbled for a candlestick and snapped it to light with two fingers on a short wick.

Hawke was bent over the cabinet he used for stacking donations – blankets, clothing, biscuit tins, whatever other miscellany City Hall or charitable civilians would give – leaving her handprint on a drawer in cold sweat.

"Should we be here? Ought you stay here? If one of them spotted us…" Hawke's breathing came in the ragged snorts of gladiator athletes who didn't know much about running scared. Her mouth was dry, and she smacked it. "They'd think to raid this place – wouldn't they? Perhaps you'd be better off at _The Hanged Man_, too."

"_I am so sorry,"_ he should've said. Any number of things, really – apologies that began with half-lies and poor attempts to make his selfishness look like naiveté: _"I didn't expect…"_, _"I hadn't thought…"_ or _"I didn't mean to bring you into this mess." _They'd all do fine. Each excuse was properly bumbling for a contrite, failed hero.

But the truth was that he should have expected it – _did_ expect it, in a bolted corridor of his conscience Anders shoved all things that were morally inconvenient – and nothing changed. The truth was that he'd been willing to risk her, a girl he didn't know from a family he didn't owe; risks were great for all mages who waltzed into consecrated grounds, but his were taken with meaning and debts. Hers were simply because the apostate was beyond prepared to sacrifice a Fereldan mercenary if it might spare Karl's life. If she had died, he'd feel guilty. He'd hate himself for a week or two for leaving that woman's body cooling on a Chantry doorstep, gullet slit deep by some templar bastard's parrying blade. He'd never find the grit to face her mother; Leandra Hawke might've never known how or why her daughter died that otherwise uneventful evening in Hightown. But Anders would recover from it, swallow it down, chalk it up to a list of inglorious casualties that people like him were forced to make.

He could do that – to some nameless, downtrodden, brother-hating girl from Lothering.

But _Karl Thekla_.

"If they'd seen us, there'd be tin suits kicking in that door by now," Anders said. He'd make no apologies tonight.

And maybe Hawke considered a "sorry" of her own, but it was lost somewhere between gulped air and the way she dug fingers into unvarnished wood. Neither did the woman fritter their silence away by expressing condolences in uncomfortable, generalizing overviews – "that didn't go as planned," for instance, which Anders might've spat out in her position. Instead, she coughed, trying to wet her mouth, spit into a handkerchief and scrubbed one set of knuckles over fraught brow lines. "I had to kill him," the girl mumbled. "He saw you. Looked you right in the face. He had to die."

Anders did not know if Karl had truly been a great man or an accomplished mage. But he had been a _good_ man, without question – the best, to a coward like him. And it was difficult to conceive of deaths tonight that were not his.

The healer was quick to absolve her. "I don't care. Every templar's guilty. He deserved worse, I promise you. I don't mind at all," he snorted, and then – in a quieter, private voice: "I'm glad you did it."

Justice made his hatreds harsh, but Anders had always loathed the Chantry's 'volunteer jailors.' Their deaths were proofs that rightness still existed in the world, cruel as it might've been; he beheld templar corpses with dark contentment wrapped in humor, because laughing dulled everything else. Grinning made the malice taste harmless. _"Biff here made the funniest gurgle when he went down,"_ had been among his first words to Annie, hadn't they – chin and robe train freshly splattered with that boy's warm blood?

Ser Rylock upon that thundering cliffside had been the first templar Anders murdered; over these next few brutal years, she would be far from his last.

"Maybe. He won't report you – that we know," Hawke rasped, clearing her throat. She stood, recuperated. Anders couldn't move. His hands felt dead against the desk top.

Justice said nothing.

"You did more than you had to," the healer told her. And she had, at that – having bloodied herself without contract. When they spoke at the pub, instructions had been sugar-glossed, painted up like strawberry pie. _"Oh, it'll be easy. I've got it all mapped out,"_ went the story, one a girl like that couldn't have wholly believed. Easy escapes were always lies. He'd never mentioned any need to pass inside those hand-carved holy arches; Anders hadn't asked her to play hero, but it seemed even a scarred sellsword proved better-equipped for that role than some self-centered apostate, haring off half-cocked and too late. It made him ill. "Don't pay me anything if your family gets sick again."

Fitting that his courage amounted to something only when spurred by cowardice. Justice was bull-headed and wrong about many things, Anders being chief among them… but he had been so right about this.

"This wasn't a service. This was a favor. Because you did me a favor," Hawke began to protest, a familiar song – but it knocked a bittery chuckle out of the mage.

"I lied to you," he said.

She stared at him across the dim clinic – candlelight chased long, treelike shadows up rain-beaten walls.

"About Karl," he continued, an explanation the woman expected. It was one she'd earned, at least. Anders flattened his eyebrows with his palm heels. His head hurt. "I lied to you. I thought I had to. I thought you wouldn't listen otherwise."

Hawke blinked, thinking about it without realizing anything, expression a confused and ragged blank. "Doesn't matter," she chuffed. The girl spat again. Her low voice had been heightened by fatigue, southland accent making words crack awkwardly at intervals. "What's done is done; I understand. You don't really know me from witch-hunters. Not really. Smart men don't lay out their plans in detail to strangers. And you needed to help your friend."

"I wasn't his friend."

The mage's gruffness turned her look demanding; the tortoiseshell stare that was once sedated by exertion twitched, nostrils flaring, scar twisting with one corner of red mouth.

"He didn't know me, Hawke. We hardly met. I suppose one of the apprentices must've been gossiping – mentioned I was locked up in the Tower. Kinloch Hold. By Redcliffe… They were going to brand me, you know. Month after my Harrowing. Karl got me out. Held a door for me. Helped me escape. Actually _escape_ them – not just run into the woods and jump in a ditch." It came out in one beleaguered, spiteful rant that made his guts sore, a memory lingering too long like an overextended sigh. Anders didn't feel much but a dull ache he couldn't center. Why bother with it? Why tell Hawke? The healer couldn't think of a good reason to drone on or clam up; from the way his sinuses were burning, it was difficult to tell these words between a confession and a rant. Maybe he was in shock, or something.

Or maybe he really didn't know enough about Karl to mourn more intimately than this sour, imprecise ache – though the fugitive apostate was so _sure_ he had, as a boy cut loose from his masters. Forget being terrified and indignant. Forget how self-serving he was. Enchanter Thekla saw a new mage at his worst and still wanted him free. He saw an unrepentant blasphemer and still believed in second, third, fourth chances. That man understood – and the knowledge that there was someone left behind who mattered, and who _got it_, flared up bravery in a craven runaway. Anders would shiver in some hollowed-out redwood at the onset of winter, crawl belly-down into a muddy beaver cave, cut his hands and knees on lava rock… all to avoid Order scouts. They never stopped. He, therefore, could never stop hiding and cowering and running – but the despair of living that life seemed small with support. Let them chase all they wanted; they wouldn't catch him. When someone did, they'd never keep him. And once their hunters left, he'd stand to wipe off the dirt, wrap his bleeding hands, huff into bluing fists for warmth – and the lad would do so gratefully – comforted by glorified memories of a quiet man who could stir rebellion by handing young magi their freedom.

He didn't know if Karl Thekla ever freed anyone else, in truth. If so, he'd never heard about it. But truth hadn't mattered so much back then, all those years stumbling through snow. A false saint was more valuable to an apostate than a one-time reality.

"They Tranquiled him," came out in a choke, residual anger burning down his nose. "He didn't even know me. He barely even knew my name."

Hawke drew in her upper lip and bit it.

"You tried. You did more for him than anyone else did. Courage beyond that – no one can hope to receive it," she began to say, hard as a proper spearman, but he cut her off with another bark. It was cold in here – cold enough to sting. Anders grabbed both arms and slouched, shoulders near his ears.

"You don't get it. It should have been _me_, Hawke."

The man anticipated a nudge from his spirit warder – dared him to comment, waited for a scolding – but won nothing. Justice was quiet. Justice was still and somber as though he stood at a lowering casket.

"I'll never understand… I'll never understand how a person can be like that," Anders mumbled, head shaking, frowning at his boot toes. Feathers jutted on his shoulders. It mattered progressively less that she was still here, standing across the clinic with fists bolted at either side, candlelight making the undersides of her pupils glint black. "Why would he do it? He had to know that if they found out, they'd find some way to blame him – something to frame him for. It's the way they are. Might has well have been a storm. Sanctimonious horseshit." A spit of his own; it hit the floor and raised dust. Furrows deepened, biting at the space above his nose, whittling long features into a glower. The mage began to feel his teeth. "Didn't he realize? Stupid son-of-a-bitch. I was never brave enough to think that way – not for some stranger. Just some boy. Hah. _Maker_. Doesn't seem fair now. I couldn't stay for my friends. Why should I think about him instead?"

Anders bristled. Air pushed through his nose. Cala Hawke watched him silently. The girl's graveness relayed patient respect; this ritual, division of hatred, was one familiar to her.

He exhaled.

"I can't believe I left him there," the apostate mumbled, scratching a hank of fine yellow hair. _No mess. No blood on his skin or smashed bones. Just alive one moment, heavy in his daily robes, and then ended._

They said little else to each other for a time. Anders crossed and uncrossed his arms, hunching further. Hawke's rough look increased its pressure. While he was pulling at his ear, missing the ring that used to sit there, she took three steps forward – lunges too steep for a woman – picked up the candlestick, and used it to ignite two others hanging from a far wall. More light made him wince. Their wicks caught dust motes that wafted midair, burning steadily, thickening the frail air.

"Did Mother tell you about my sister?" Hawke asked him as she struck another, lips pressed tight, candle clutched in one strict hand.

"You have a sister?"

"I _had_ a sister," she corrected.

Anders was not what you'd typically call an empathetic man, but he had the decency to look away. Eyelets gleaned in the shadow of his desk; worn laces shifted; soles squeaked when he transferred weight between both feet.

"You see how it is with my brother," Hawke offered, using her thumb to melt a spot of wax, sticking the torch-candle into its pewter coaster. She carried it back and placed the thing next to Anders with a soft _chink_. There was no eye contact between them. "But my sister I loved with my entire heart, mage. And I still left her there, in Lothering." The girl's tone was mild, almost conversational… but there was clarity to it that made this story – sparse as it was – resonate deep enough to make him feel sicker. Her expression was taut, reserved, and shellacked in stone. Hawke would've made a fine Tranquil. Her voice was calm at its deepest regrets. "Refugees can't bury their war-dead. I left her because I had to. But I still left her. For monsters to eat at her body."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

The Fereldan cleared her throat.

"We are all part coward," she jumped in, back straight, fingers draping the far ridge of Anders's cluttered desk. The woman spoke with authority as though this carnage _had_ to have a point. "We all have times we must run."

But she did not look at him.

Anders sat. And Justice said nothing.

"People have been helping me and saving me my entire life, Hawke," he murmured, hands curling. "I'm getting tired of running."

Hawke didn't have anything else to give, so she brushed both palms on her tunic, knuckles popping, and glanced to the exit. Umber strands loosened from their bun and wafted along her cheekbones. "If you really think you'll do well on your own, I should go back to the inn. My family will worry. I don't want Carver out looking for me." She glanced to him. "You are welcome to come along. Varric will see to it they let you a room, I'm sure."

"Thank you, but no. The templars won't be any less likely to turn me up there than here. I might as well stay," Anders decided. He was in no mood to endure so many people – questions, chatter, fire heat, ale-stained wood floorboards sticking to the bottom of his boots. Another sigh. The mage pushed himself away from his desk and began to clear off a table corner for poultice-brewing. "Suppose I'll need to close the clinic down for a while. Until this blows over, at least. Considering the Gallows will no doubt find some 'witness' to pay off, if they think even for a second it's likely to implicate me. Closing up shop makes a lot of extra work. Best get started in on it now."

'_Extra work... there's a hell of an understatement. So damned much to do.'_ Potion stocking, ingredient boxing, drying wet components for storage, passing out remedies to Darktown's chronic patients, rationing medicines into single-dose sizes even illiterate paupers could manage. He didn't have anyone incredibly pregnant right now, thank the Maker – until last week, that elf shoemaker's mistress had been waddling around like a tick ready to pop. If you asked Anders, though, Vette Brickendan was looking a little pudgy lately… and she'd just have to hold it in long enough for the templar scouts to stop their inevitable sniffing around his doorstep. He was far more concerned about illness. Hopefully the Silves would be all right. Mr. Silves neck glands had swollen up like a yellow-stomached perch two months ago and showed no sign of abating; his nose ran constantly, eyes crusting shut every morning. The healer filed it away, Justice tapping steadily at his memory. He'd have to make them a double-batch of elfroot, just in case the old miner deteriorated. Did he have the reserves for that? Best check… he wouldn't dare go poking around Sundermount's foothills now, fearing the hike home would end with ambushes and pitchforks stuck into his belly. _"So much to do, indeed…"_

Karl Thekla – dead.

"Then I'll leave you to it," she granted.

Hawke's footsteps were deliberate and took her straight to that shoddy door. Anders wrestled down a stupid kick to follow the girl, simply because he did not relish the thought of standing here alone, grinding hawthorn seeds in the dark. _"You are never alone. But there is work to be done. Let her leave,"_ Justice insisted. The spirit's advice was gentler than usual, but told him this in no uncertain terms.

"Thanks," he said. His hands were pricked with splinters, nails sinking into a carton of sage. "For coming. I put you in a tight spot tonight. Things didn't turn out, and. Yes. Thanks."

She tilted her head in something like a nod.

"Mage," Hawke added. One of her coarse hands rested on the doorframe, shoulders shifting the planes of her back. "You weren't wrong. I would have done it. I would want someone to do the same for me."

She opened it.

"Hawke," wrang out of his throat before Anders knew he'd spoken.

She twisted 'round. Brown eyes narrowed in the low light. "What?"

"When do you leave? For the Deep Roads."

The woman considered this, frowning. Her estimates were unsteady, but her convictions were firm. "Varric tells me in two weeks. But I assume that could change. Preparations are still underway; we'll be gone a month. Why do you ask?" A squint. "Do you need something else from us?"

It was like breathing out:

"I was hoping…" He swallowed, numb from knees to fingertips. "I was thinking maybe it'd be all right if I came with you."

Ignoring the halfhearted attempts she made to talk him out of a dangerous venture; ignoring how Justice screamed at him without reprieve for the next three days; ignoring that rotting in the pit of his gut; ignoring the mess the Magi left in Kirkwall's holy plaza, tiles running with blood – Hawke looked somehow pleased.

"If you're sure, then – I'll make room for you," she said, came close to a smile, and left him standing in Darktown.

Anders couldn't think up a better way to describe what Cala Hawke did for the people she collected over so many years and cut throats. First there had been Aveline Vallen, widowed out of Lothering with a dead templar's shield lagging on her back; then there had been Varric Tethras, a business proposition that led to a younger brother in fierce need of friendship. Merrill, expelled by everyone else the accident-prone elf met. Fenris, a rage-blind slave he never grew to like or respect. Isabela, who – Maker knew – had committed more than her fair share of moral mishaps, running with daggers in open hands. Later, there came Sebastian Vael, the prince who suffocated his ambition beneath a choirboy smock; Charade, one of two cousins she didn't know she had; Alain, who became theirs because he had no other home. She did not welcome them all – not specifically – but there was this unfailing offer of a spare notch, a square to sleep on, a place where each body in their pack of strays could serve some purpose. Hawke could shoulder the burden. She had enough.

"_I'll make room," _she said, and she always did.


	8. Deep Shuffle

**Deep Shuffle**

It was very jittery. It was pretzeled on the courtyard tiles, looking vaguely insectoid, scrawny limbs far too lengthy for the meager girth of its body. It was oversensitive, if you watched; that snout, pointy and a little wet in this humid midday sun, twitched at every strange scent wafting by. Its mane was short, raggedy black and hadn't been tended to in some time. And it was staring at the mage with glossy, eager eyes – massive pupils, irises greener than kelp – fidgeting as though it wanted to jump up and sit in his lap.

"So. You're Merrill," Anders said, cupping his soup dish, beholding the elf girl with suspicion and a narrow glance.

He was sitting on the back of Bodahn Feddic's covered wagon, legs dangling, drinking this bowl of – it was probably tomato and basil, but who could really be sure with dwarf cooks? – early dinner while their grand party prepared to depart Kirkwall. The City of Chains struck Anders no differently with this added knowledge he was bound for a month slogging into darkness; it was still the reeking, hot-backed, molting old water-moccasin, belly made lumpy with the bird eggs it swallowed. Though the healer was sure he'd be taking this claim right back at that first spray of gooey 'spawn blood all over his coat feathers, he was almost glad to be leaving it for a time. _'Heh. Heh-heh. And exactly how much shit does one need to trudge through before a jaunt into the Deep Roads rings like a vacation? What do you think, Justice?'_

His spirit companion grumbled something distasteful – or at least, it certainly felt like grumbling, but that might've always been Anders's stomach. He realized how hungry he was. This soup was awfully thin, a watery orange color rather than rich scarlet, but it was the first thing he'd eaten since yesterday noon. His hand, channeling heat across the ceramic, kept it warm. Kirkwall was particularly breezy today. Old cage smelled a lot like rain, too – mountain earthiness mingling with that persistent saltwater smell in a manner that made the apostate's nose wrinkle. He glanced across their encampment of milling dwarves. Most of them were packing supplies into carriages – water barrels and bread crates, tinder rolls, wool bedding, plenty of flint. Anders had a full load of spare weapons stacked behind him. Potions rattled back there somewhere, too, no doubt part of the merchant's original stores. Bodahn himself was ladling food from cauldron to bowls whilst trying to keep his moonish boy out of everyone's way.

They were one hell of an adventuring troupe.

Made him think they were all probably going to find their deaths down there, really – but it was nice not to think about Karl's.

Meanwhile, that Dalish girl Hawke "warned" him about was still boring twinkling holes into the side of Anders's face, which tried its best to appear impassive. This was somewhat difficult when "Merrill" looked so apt to spring up and bite off his head. Not because she hated him, no – there wasn't any malice from the elf – but interest so intense, Anders felt like one of those poor carnival mages they shackled up in Rivain. Maybe she expected he'd start performing… snatch up the staff that leant beside him and blast sparkles everywhere. Or leap up on this rickety wagon and disappear into his robes with a dramatic "huzzah!" Maker's ass. The apostate _wished_ he could do that. Would've made a great show for any templar scouts. And it would've been especially useful now, considering that spindly praying-mantis thing was looking over here like maybe she'd poke him with a sharp stick… just to see what color human spell-casters bled.

Unsettled him. Disturbed the hells out of him, actually. Anders drank his soup with extreme skepticism.

"Yes! And you're a _Circle mage_," she squeaked – something that was obvious to everyone present by this particular point in their recruitment spiel, but repeated to confirm it to herself. "You're from Ferelden. That's what Cala said. You're from that great big tower in the lake!"

"Nnn," Anders said, sunlight bouncing off the salmon cobbles and hurting his sleepless eyes.

"I'm a mage, too!" Merrill announced, still staring at him, bouncing enthusiastically to her knees and inching closer. That elf looked remarkably like a starving feral cat about to pounce. Tribal tattoos stood in for whiskers. Anders prepared to throw his dish at her. "We're both mages! I've never met another mage! Not a human one, I mean. But… you're with us, now, so I suppose you're technically an apostate. Then again – so am I! This is thrilling. What're the chances! And I'm even from Ferelden! We're Fereldan apostates."

"_Could she possibly say that any louder? Bothersome creature," _Justice groused, and for the first time in quite a while, Anders wholeheartedly agreed with his parasite. He had been uneasy with how placid the normally riotous knight had been these past few weeks, since the Chantry – _'I'mnotthinkingaboutthat'_ – and even his bellowing didn't feel full-force.

"_I am not a parasite. If anything, _you_ are dulling _my_ powers with your constant wavering and your underwhelming upper-body strength."_

Ah, that was better.

Yes, Hawke had warned him about _Merrill_, all right. When she mentioned her new Alienage friend could be "a little exhausting," however, Anders assumed the girl was just suffering from elf-in-the-big-city syndrome: cooing, cheery, and overwhelmed by it all. These things were certainly factors. But their Dalish tagalong actually looked as though her ears might pop off and zip away with excitement at every few steps. She danced in-place often. She 'oohed' at the most mundane wonders. She had absolutely no idea of how filthy this city of plague and disparities was, really, delighted by tavern brawls or the occasional mugging outside her shack's door.

And she hadn't shut up once since setting foot in Kirkwall – or, at least, that's what Hawke had told him.

"Is it very different? Being a human mage. Oh! I guess you wouldn't know that, would you? – having never been a Dalish mage." Merrill was now right before Anders; she crept up to the wagon, still kneeling on those battered leggings, both hands clutching the banister he sat on. The girl was _peering_ at him. Her toes poked through stocking holes and curled around a bit of mosaic. Hungry cats were rarely so damned undignified… particularly not Ser Pounce, the noble beast. _Huh_. Maybe if he tossed her a bit of dried tuna, she'd let him alone. "Varric said you're a _healer_. I'm not a healer. But I do lots of other magics. Can you cast fireballs? I can cast fireballs. And ice cones. Very large ones!"

You know – it was strange for him to be so resistant to a woman's advances, but there was absolutely nothing sexual about Merrill's brand of fascination. She was like some village child who witnessed a tiny sprig of magic and promptly started clinging to your robes.

"D'you think Cala's a mage?" she whispered, smile crinkling her bottom eyelids, a secret shared. Her fingers clutched the carriage railing. Give it a minute, and that girl might be teething on it. "She told me she's not but I think she's lying."

Anders looked across the way, to where Cala Hawke spoke with Bartrand Tethras. She was strapped with a few loose metal plates that covered the leather jerkin beneath – steel shielded vital tendons, glinting over red fabric. One pauldron, heavier than looked comfortable for her; shingles to guard elbows, where a cut to the inside might lame you for life; shynbalds wrapped around hard-soled boot necks; slatted bracers to protect wrists. That rusted spear clung to her back. The woman certainly looked more like a proper Red Iron now and less like a refugee with stained clothes, a sick uncle, and a brother who fought over dinner scraps. She looked somber, discussing travel details with folded arms. Lieutenant Vallen probably could've enlisted her, were it not for that unspectacular height and mercenary air.

Anders had to wonder what Aveline thought of all this – "her" Hawkes tramping into the Deep Roads – while daily duties kept the soldier safely in Kirkwall's gates. Not to mention her mother.

"Oh, I don't _know_. I don't know her. Don't ask me these things," the apostate scoffed, finishing off his last sip. "Why don't you go get something to eat before we leave off?"

"I already ate before I left this morning! Had porridge."

"Here." He pushed his empty bowl into her hands, hopping to a stand. "Take this and go get yourself a dip of soup."

"But I'm not hungry!"

Anders walked off before the girl could latch onto his leg.

No sense in interrupting Hawke and Bartrand at their plans; the healer grabbed his stave, tossed it over a shoulder, rounded their travelers' thoroughfare, weaved through crates, and eventually set himself to picking through a hefty medicine chest he'd packed. The poultices were all fresh, bandages clean; he'd mixed them last night. There wasn't generally much opportunity for alchemy on the road (let alone the Deep ones), so Anders used up every ingredient he couldn't store. After all, he'd no guarantee his warehouse would be standing when they returned. _'Or, you know. That we WILL return, at all.'_

"_And who's fault would that be, I wonder?"_ Justice chimed in, still in a huff.

Whatever insults the spirit hurled, his host could feel that there was a pervasive interest beneath all that righteous bluster. The Deep Roads were dangerous (perhaps unnecessarily so), but they were also an unfamiliar location – one with its history buried in strife against a wretched enemy. Grey Wardens, Kristoff included, had associated that gruesome place with glory through death. These things intrigued Justice. A part of him wanted to brave its depths, facing down evil with a virtuous blade… not merely scrape a few shallow thaigs and claim they'd fought where the darkspawn bred.

"_That is false. Your Blights and death-rituals matter little to me. Perhaps I am curious, but trust when I say that _your_ duty has nothing to do with trekking about down there – it is assisting the poor here. What if you never return? Have you even considered it? These people depend upon you. Where will that leave them?"_

Anders pursed. _'I won't be assisting anyone if the templars hang me, will I?'_

"_Be that as it may. I find it hard to believe there are no other places to hide than the Deep Roads."_

'_True. But Justice – if I hide here, my hands are tied. Can't do a thing. If I go, I'll be _helping_ people. '_

He couldn't help but smirk at how the spirit flustered, caught by his own crusade.

"_One _chooses_ to venture below. One _chooses_ to cross blades with these monsters. One does not choose poverty; one does not choose plague; one does not choose to die poor and flea-bitten, sickened by the injustices of a …"_

'_Think of it as a disease with teeth,'_ Anders suggested, sighed through his nose, and prepared for the next ten minutes of Justice's rant.

Ignoring him, the mage unlatched his luggage. Most potions had been capped into tin flasks, which were more durable for their purposes, but he'd run out halfway through. The rest of them had to do with standard glass. Having nothing else to keep him busy, Anders quickly checked their wrappings – it'd be unfortunate to crack open the healing safe after a darkspawn tumble and find all his medicines broken.

"Well, I bet you never guessed to find yourself here – eh, Blondie?" Varric gave the man a good-natured thump to the back of his head.

Anders rubbed it, a little off-put by the familiar friendship gesture from a stranger. He shrugged. He fixed his ponytail – not that it made any difference whatsoever, as 'fixing' the mage's hair just meant readjusting the scruffy. "Getting ready to be snacked on by Deep Roads ogres, you mean? Eh. Seems like every bit as good a death-trap as hanging around Darktown." And the merchant prince smiled at him for that jest, barking a belly laugh, patting his jacket's heavy belt buckle. A multitude of earrings jingled at Varric's ear. Anders was little bit jealous. He pulled at his lobe, still scarred from where that choking hurlock had ripped the hoop out of it. Maker, had that bled like a bitch. Sopped his robe collar so badly a spooked Annie-Lynn thought their resident Magi-Warden had been _"shanked right to the bleedin' jug-yoo-lure, sparkle-fingers!"_ She'd chortled nervously, kicked that monster's fist open, and flipped it back to him with a little fleck of ear skin still attached to the gold.

Anders decided it just wasn't worth it, after that.

"That's what happens when people talk to Hawke, I've noticed. You get roped into ventures with madmen. Ah, well." The dwarf grinned famously, slapping his gilded crossbow. "We're mighty glad to have you with us, by the way."

"I've treated the Hawkes a few times now. Was on a roll. Figured – why stop there?"

"I meant me and Bianca, here. But sure. She's probably glad to have you, too."

Across the way, Cala had left Bartrand, and was now being chased by her squint-eyed brother over something that sounded like "_wheels._" Carver did not relent. She didn't bother waving him off – simply tried to walk away. Given the resent between them, their similarities in appearance were awkward and a little haunting: resolute pride, the dark hair, moorland cheekbones, that same staunch jut to their chin when they stood before judgmental eyes. They stomped about the same way, too. She could've easily been a drillmaster; covered in chainmail and iron, Anders thought the boy could pass for someone's squire. It was fitting that Hawke drew a gathered cord of rope and threw it to her sibling, ordering him to help pack. She then hefted a spare axel that was far too heavy for her; Carver squawked about bullheadedness, but shouldered his way beneath the other end, evening them out.

"Do they always fight like that?" Anders jerked a thumb towards the two siblings and pantomimed claws.

"Oh, Blondie. You have no idea."

"Do you know why?"

Varric shrugged, bulky shoulders rumpling his studded coat. Bolt feathers bristled in his quiver, casing inlaid with what looked to be dragon heads in an embellished Orzammar style, garnets stuck along its strap. "Ah, who's to say? Brothers knock heads sometimes. Sisters, too – that one, at least. You got any brothers, doc?" A head-shake. "Eh. No, I guess you wouldn't, would you? Probably better off, looking at those two. Hell, I'd even be tempted to claim that family is almost less-functional than mine, and believe me: it's a pretty extreme distinction. But don't you worry." Another shrug, glinting with metal, both decorative and protective. "They'll do all right… old Hawke and Hawke-and-a-Half. Just don't nettle the big one," was his advice; the talkative dwarf's crooked, Romanesque nose creased in good humor. "Kid's kind of a brat. But I mean that in the best possible way."

"_Do you have to do EVERYTHING?" _Hawke-and-a-Half was currently scolding his sibling, who'd snatched a box from the young man's hands, rearranging a third of what he'd already loaded. Varric observed with a raised eyebrow and pointed nod.

"As I've seen," the apostate agreed.

"I pretty much think all Fereldans are boneheads these days. Too much dog shit in the water up there or something. No offense, Blondie."

Anders grinned as he repacked potions. "None taken."

"Anyway. It's a significant point of relief to have a doctor onboard this little expedition and we're grateful, is all I'm trying to say. You'll take care of me if I catch an axe in the back, yeah?" With that – and another awkward, too-friendly crossbow knock to the back of his head – Varric left the group healer well enough alone.

Varric Tethras knew so much about Kirkwall, he sometimes forgot he didn't know _you_.

Merrill, the mage noticed, had wandered over to one of their caravan's roped oxen. She fed it handfuls of weeds, petting the creature's ears, not bothering to hide her expressions of gleeful disgust when its tongue rasped knobby elven fingers. Bartrand and his charismatic younger brother were exchanging grin-for-scowl across the square on a pretty even spread. The Hawkes were tying down crates. Anders locked and dragged his medicine chest over, surprised when Cala fluidly transitioned from a nailing a wine barrel to grabbing its free handle, assisting him in chucking the oversized case onto Bodahn's wagon bed. Glass rattled inside. She wiped her forehead and turned back to work before he could say anything, flicking sweat onto the ground.

Cala and Carver Hawke made short work of whatever they crossed, be it clunky baggage or Lowtown fistfights. They were not friendly, and the apostate had to wonder why – if these two siblings had always been at odds, or if some violent thing had driven this rift between them like a woodcutter's wedge. But perhaps it did not matter, in the end. What mattered more was that they shouldered shared burdens. What mattered was that neither she nor he was willing to cede under hardships, whether or not that meant personal sacrifice. They gritted down together with a joint knowledge that as much as this corroded love might feel like hate, a rusted cross-guard, it was vital to keep that family sword hefted up tight. The Hawkes were a compact unit. They had always been war children, long before the Blight surged to fair Lothering's doorstep.

He didn't know if it should've been such a punch to the guts to watch, then – when to sedate their frantic mother, collar wrinkled with tearstains – Lady Hawke had looked twice at her brother and left him behind.

"Stay here with Mother," she'd said, and handed him his knapsack with little else to say. There were no comforts from this woman; her fingernails left dents in the leather straps.

His stutters were rageful pink and came quickly. "This is bullshit," he was swearing. "You need me. She doesn't need me. You don't need me, Mother-" Paw hands clamping Leandra's arms, urging. She choked on twelve months of lingering grief. "-you've got so many people already. Ivan and Gamlen and Aveline. You don't need me! You need to just stay here and wait for me to come back. _They_ need me, don't you understand? I need to fix this. I need to…"

"Stay HERE and protect Mother," Hawke repeated.

Carver stared at her with mirror brown eyes and a look reserved for Maferaths.

He did not move as Bartrand called a crude start to a dark journey – did not lunge after Cala in his typical way, all bitter vim and frustration. Yokes closed around the oxen's necks. Dogcarts hauled their trappings up. Bodahn Feddic skittered to collect his son, stumbling over loose tile chips; that Dalish girl sprinted to secure her spot in his wagon. It was like stirring a large, sluggish beast. The feet of their party dragged forward, away from Kirkwall's sludge, toward carnivorous mineshafts toothed with gold. Carver did not budge. Leandra's red eyes and kisses could not lead either one away.

"You wish it had been me," he spat as his sister left them, lip dye smudged into her palms and cheekbones. "You wish I had died and she had lived."

Cala looked at him and said nothing.

He cracked the left side of her face.

She caught the blow fully, chin whipped aside, sharp sound scattering across the courtyard. Her hands fisted. They sparked inadvertently. But they did not move.

Carver turned back with wetness burning his eyes, and Cala Hawke left the City of Chains cupping nose blood in her hand.

Leandra did not stop crying for years.

**II.**

"Do you love your work, mage?" Hawke asked, driving her metal toe into the ground, kicking up a small explosion of what Bartrand just called _good-honest-dwarven-dirt_.

They were three days outside Kirkwall, six hours into the Deep Roads entrance marked upon those Warden maps, and covered in more sweat than blood. The Free Marches were muggy this time of year, humidity mixing unkindly with cool, damp weather. Anders's neck stuck to the leather of his robe until it stung. Thus far, their expedition had been a grimy, drudging trip – low on excitement, but tiring nonetheless. It threatened to rain and did not. The caverns, once they reached them, threatened to collapse but did not. The one bandit troupe that skirted around them threatened to attack but did not. Justice thought it all very dull, really.

The party would've made better time were they not slogging forward on foot; dwarves had an unfortunate prejudice against horses, however. (Anders guessed because their squatty feet couldn't reach the stirrups.) So they pushed on. The happy adventurers alternated between walking and hitching brief rides on one of three supply carts. A lifetime of running did have its benefits – miles of rugged steppes and poorly-beaten paths did not phase the mage. Bare-footed Merrill seemed inured to the distance, too, but Varric's face betrayed his jokes: he was in agony. Bartrand only hollered when anyone complained, though. The younger Tethras had to soldier on by flexing his boot soles and making that worsening limp look like a cocksure swagger.

Cala Hawke did not have much to say for those first three days, rolling wagon wheels across dewy field grass. She briefly spoke to Anders about how he planned on reopening his clinic when Feddic broke a spoke and they stopped for repairs; the man noted how her damp hair sutured stubbornly to the girl's temples. Apart from that, however, they did not interact beyond curt hellos and occasional check-ins. Varric won everyone's attention because he demanded it. Bartrand shared nightly status reports. But the apostate had caught only Merrill's interest, and were it not for her constant questions, was generally left to his own devices at camp. That was just fine-and-dandy. He was used to lingering on the sidelines, just out-of-reach, edged away like a proper omega wolf. A small, private fireplace suited him; that old showboating lifestyle had been abandoned by necessity. He remembered those days of dozing off in a pile of his slob-friends fondly, of course – fighting for sleeping space on the study floor, because they were too drunk on smuggled ale to find their beds – but that sort of acceptance was limited to Circle grounds. This was only one of many prices free mages paid; even trusted companions tended to keep at arm's length from those the templars branded maleficarum. Nevertheless, the familiar exclusion was a little disappointing from Hawke.

'_Granted, it's more than a little awkward to watch some perfect acquaintance drop his Tranquil friend out a Chantry window…' _But Anders wasn't thinking about that.

So it was strange, then – how once they passed from shrub plains to stone floors, leaving Sundermount's cindery clouds behind – Hawke had plopped down beside him, pauldron gleaning, as Bartrand supervised the campgrounds behind them.

"Pardon?" the healer said, cross-legged beside a fire-pit, halberd parked across his lap.

"Your work," she echoed. Embers popped into weak flames, desperate for fresh oxygen. Hawke poked at them with her menacing spear. Firelight made her scar look black. Whenever the girl shifted, sitting upon what looked to be a crumbled rock fence, pale roan eyes flashed red. "Do you love it?"

"I don't think I know what you mean."

She hunkered forward, an elbow on each knee, and frowned. "I only figured that mages don't become doctors unless they have a particular love for it. Ungrateful job. Living poor. Having to deal with people – the dying. You must love it, then?"

Anders gave a great, apathetic shrug. "Oh, it's _all right_," the man said – and the petulant way he sighed it almost made laughter snort out of Hawke.

"But you don't do it because you love it."

"Well, you know." The repeated question was beginning to make him uncomfortable… not to mention her sudden companionship. Anders shifted. He glanced nervously to that sorry-arse pile of sticks, twine and blankets Merrill called a tent. "Have to do something, eh? Might as well help people. Helped you, didn't I? And _you_, by the way…" The mage gave a jab that crumbled into this stupid, flamboyant _swirl_ gesture – because shoving your finger at a Hawke was difficult business. "Your job's not all summer days and strawberry patches, either."

"_Everything down here looks the same," _or so this ex-Warden would've told you, had anyone asked his opinion. (They didn't.) Sunlight still penetrated the stone at their current depth; great fissures in old earth let warmth trickle through, perhaps the remnants of ancient Blight scars. It fed large roots that wrapped around wall carvings like veins. It washed over minerals: red marble, glittering with onyx; sediments of lime winking in cement mixes; carvings of unknown dwarves with magma-rock eyes. You could sink your fingers in them and rub the shimmer onto your pant legs. Watching dust whorl about made the air they breathed feel thicker, warding off the must that wafted up from below. Visibility was meager – the torch plinths and braziers that lined this route fell into disrepair centuries ago – but it was nice being able to see without the aid of magic. Tread much deeper, and the blackness ate your hands mere inches away from your face. Tread much deeper, and torches refused to ignite. Tread much deeper, and you oughtn't strike them, anyway – because ogres would run, salivating themselves silly, as though you clanged a dinner-bell.

"Not like being a doctor," she insisted. "Killing is quick, messy, and over. You don't look anyone in the face doing what I do."

Anders gave a flimsy smile. "It's hard to imagine loving work for the Red Iron."

"I didn't," the woman swore, forceful in her openness, but strangely not-unpleasant. That blue, swollen fist-print was still smudged onto one side of Cala's chin. "I hated it. Every second of it."

"But you seem so… hmm. How to put this diplomatically…"

She nodded. Her mane was a mess, fine and unwashed. (Then again, his wasn't much better off.) "Oh, I am. I'm an excellent mercenary. One of the best I know. And I still hate the Red Iron, and everything they are."

He watched her prod the ashes for a minute longer before tiring off it. Anders held his hands flat above the pit, flushing new flame onto wood chips and wispy hay. It roared momentarily, but quickly began to suffer again, gasping for breath. Hawke removed her stave. She stuck it into the dry earth, face glowing orange. "Is the feeling mutual? Because I'd wager they appreciated your particular abilities quite a bit. It had to be a rare conscription; not often that anyone with so much as a whiff of magic misses the Gallows in Kirkwall."

A single, coarse guffaw – made completely of bitterness. "They treated me like a pit-fighting dog. Unsnap the collar, throw in the mage."

It was a painfully familiar state of being: Circle members enlisted into the King's Army at Ostagar to be slaughtered; enchanters-turned-bodyguards for controversial nobles; fresh graduates shuttled off to the various dangerous folds of their world, forced to serve masters concerned only with who they could protect. This untrained Fereldan had never been a templar-slave, if she was to be believed – and it was still difficult to escape falling into similar traps. That was the life-course of those who held magic, legal or not.

Grave messages with infuriating implications – Justice witnessed many such wrongs that his host had long since learned to endure, and with each, their collective resent grew stronger. While this relationship would never evolve to complete symbiosis – Anders could never feel comfortable sharing his mind and body – the spirit's powerful oath of _"One day, there will be a reckoning_" sounded less and less ominous as time went on. Maybe that purpose made sense. Or maybe he was just getting used to having the old blighter rolling around in his head. Who could really say?

Grim as it got, the man didn't miss her word choice. He warded off an inappropriate grin. "Oh. 'Mage' now, is it?"

"You know what I mean," she gruffed.

The curtness made his mouth twist up. "Sure do. We're on the doorstep of a few thousand darkspawn and I'm the only doctor here, far as I know, so by all means. Butter me up."

"I wasn't."

"I'll heal you anyway. You don't have to make doe eyes. Really," the apostate went on, bait cast, unable to help himself because of months of stone-faced Darktown and the way that sullen mercenary suddenly looked so scandalized.

"I _wasn't_," Hawke growled.

"But it can't hurt your chances, can it?"

It dawned on her like a runaway electric bolt – and it made her look just about as dumbfounded. "Are… you teasing me?" she asked him, brow raised, eyes squinting as though this wasn't a sure thing. The woman seemed two parts cautious and one bewildered, as though solid ground just shook beneath her feet and threatened an earthquake.

The nuances between teasing and mocking were thin but vital; Anders gave her a nod and an affirmative '_mm_.'

Hawke still looked thunderstruck – as though mean words with the lack of real cruelty troubled her. "Sorry. It's only that nobody's teased me in ages," she muttered. "Not just – out in the open, like that. I don't think since I left Lothering. You forget how to react. Kirkwall is… different."

"Lowtown's not so cheery," the healer reminded her, picked up a stick, and gave their fickle fire a good few pokes of his own. "I'm sure there are plenty of wry bastards in Hightown."

She kicked at some more dirt.

"Anyway, it doesn't much matter down here. Darkspawn never did appreciate my jokes. My cat, either. That's to say _they_ didn't appreciate _him_, I mean – Ser Pounce had a great sense of humor. Just a downright hilarious animal, all around," Anders announced, scraping at a hunk of charred oak until it scattered to firefly sparks. "Scratched a genlock on the nose once as a lark. Drew blood – plenty of it. And that's how he became Thedas's one-and-only Warden-kitty. There was a Joining ceremony and everything."

"You're still teasing," the woman noted, as though this account left room for any possible doubt.

"I presided. The Hero of Ferelden was even there. We used a very tiny chalice."

He expected her perplexed look and Justice's warnings not to betray the Greys' integral secrecy; still, it made him happy. Cala was troubled. Anders peered at her between the fingers he'd pinched together to emphasize just how small that supposed darkspawn goblet was.

"Yes, I'm _teasing_," he heaved, afraid Merrill might catch this rumor and fire up a new 'pester-the-Circle-mage' campaign. "Mostly. Pounce did nail that genlock fierce, though. About tore the poor whelp's mug off."

The girl smiled nervously, but from that sidelong way she'd stare, had to mull him over more than once.

Hawke was not talkative; she kept to herself as they marched deeper towards the core of the world, severe and focused forward. Justice wished Anders could train his wandering eyes to do the same. And the spirit appreciated her ethic, for all the hecticness this woman brought about into their life; he commended iron dedication and bleak, unsmiling, gnashing resolve. He respected that she – so unlike many others – was content to nod her head, but did not tease back. Nothing seemed apt to stop this creature of Spartan habits from soldiering on.

Justice was somewhat less thrilled, though, that each evening – when the wheels stopped clacking on age-cracked concrete – she would seat herself beside them, and talk until Anders fell asleep.

**III.**

"Damn it, Daisy!" Varric shouts, leading Merrill back to camp by one hand. Their resident elf touches her face, high cheeks pink with embarrassment, expression contrite. "If you wander off one more time, I swear to all your loincloth-wearing gods, I'll tie you to a wagon wheel!"

Hawke and Anders look unhappily at her – but they breathe a joint sigh of relief.

She likes Varric Tethras, Cala explains; though this hard woman is not certain exactly why. It is something about the way he talks. There is bluster in that wide step, sure enough, but there is also cleverness – a lifestyle defined by grandeur and caution in equal measures. He is sharp as a hen-fed fox. But he is also kind, warm, charitable by Kirkwall standards. This fellow is something like a fireplace. His crooked smile is Lowtown brutish, but coaxing and disarming. He wears a broken nose and a honey tongue. He is an easy man to toast with, and within minutes, end up sharing every dark spot in your history. And – no matter how the dwarven tradesman might profit from these tales – speak from your heart, show him your candor, and he would care.

Varric makes stories out of misshapen adventures, crafts characters from people. But it is not his ingenuity and gilded personality that impresses Hawke. Nor is it his witty pen, ironic charm, elaborate jokes, or generous beer-buying. It is the sincerity in this man's voice, even when he wildly exaggerates, that earns her friendship. His lies are full of honest love.

Cala likes Varric, she explains – and Anders finds he likes him, too.

**IV.**

The darkspawn corpse is lying spread-eagle in its own black puddle, tongue sprawling out – but Hawke smacks it with a tent hammer, just in case.

Despite the ex-Warden's cautionary tales about 'spawn blood – how it seeps into your tiny cuts and s_ears like a toxic bitch_ – this woman is confident in her leather gloves. That wicked, dehydrated body sits still and rotten smack-dab in the center of a stone bridge, after all. It is lying in their path, she reasons – and because they cannot hike up their skirts to wade through the golden lava-flow, is an obstacle that must be crossed. One boot presses down on its rusted breastplate. Her head cocks, brown eyes rumpling. She does not count coup; she beats the monster's body once, a thuggish, dull bludgeon to the skull. It crunches, and grey liquid spills out.

"Yeah. Thing's dead," their brave point-man announces, satisfied; the girl steps away with mercenary nonchalance.

Merrill is highly intrigued.

This worries Anders more than a little.

"Look at it," the elf remarks, blinking owlishly, those forest eyes swallowing half her face. Tiny braid beads click around long, tapering ears when she cocks her head. "How foul. Its blood looks like oil! And it _simmers_, too – as though it'd cook! That is so _interesting_." She pads over for a closer study, bare toes covered with Deep Roads soot. Foolish thing is almost beaming with curiosity. Her motions are clumsy, spastic, crowlike, all gamey elbows and wheat-shaft legs; Anders honestly wonders if Merrill might pull vials from those raggedy hides and try to capsule a sample or two.

And he had no idea how accurate that guess was – because one minute she is circling the cadaver, and the next, their Dalish mage has squatted down and is extending a bony, pale-white digit, uncurling her knuckle…

"Stop that," the healer snapped, stomping over with authority he's never pretended to have. "Get away from it. Andraste's ass, Merrill – don't let the blood touch your feet!"

The girl's grin is famous, even as she hops back. There are no maggots to contend with down here, flies driven off by stale air… but patrolling deep stalkers have long since sucked out the hurlock's eyeballs. He grimaces. "Don't worry, Anders! This one's dead."

"That doesn't mean it's not dangerous," the apostate says, feeling oddly like Justice for this paternal tone. "Leave it alone. You're going to catch the taint."

She thrust out her bottom lip in a pout.

Even then – even _then_ – Merrill just made Anders have to _scold _someone. Preferably the stupid moon-pie, herself.

Don't take him badly. It's not as though he didn't _like_ Merrill. The man supposed he grew to love her, in his own (admittedly very strained) way, as years rolled on. Theirs was simply love interplayed with frequent urges to smash a mirror over her head. It was an awkward routine. She would cling to his robe train in respect for an older mage, and slight awe over the spirit that sat inside him; he'd endure idiotic questions and constant bumbling because there was a part of her that Anders found awfully endearing. Surely there was something to be said for innocence powerful enough to slit its writs, summon wraiths, and spin around with that trademark sunny smile. She was just so god-damned _cute_. Later – when Kirkwall began to quake – he would not have hesitated to stand before Qunari javelins for her; or, more likely, parlay with pride demons to save that nitwit from herself.

Still completely insufferable, though.

"Do as he says, Merrill," Hawke instructs, and drops the hammer, its snout still dripping brains.

"Fine, fine. All right. Not as though I was going to wash my hands in it…"

The elf crawls off, wiping her palms free of death-sweat, and Anders can't help but feel a bit victorious.

In the next hour, they begin to run amuck of scout bands – a gradual upwards trickling of foot-soldiers who'd lingered behind during the Blight. Slavering teeth and hair-raising screeches fit the bill. But as frightening as the beasts were to those who'd never faced 'spawn before, these bastards were weakened and disorganized, stragglers leftover from a lost war; their dwarven caravan dispatches them easily. Anders throws Chain Lightning and shakes the sting out of his fingers before most can enter strike-range. Tethras senior seems unimpressed, but the commander's younger brother notes how fortunate they are to have enlisted mages. _"This will be a cinch," _Varric snickers, jerking his broad chin towards the skeleton of a well-cooked emissary. _"We're going to make off like a bunch of unscathed barons. Good on you, Blondie." _(It's as much a compliment to him as it is to the conniving merchant-prince who recruited them all.)

So progress trundles on. The miners and gemsmiths Bartrand commissioned hurl their pickaxes at gold-plated walls, stripping off rich karats, as the rest of them watch for disturbances. Cala leans against her spear. Merrill brushes over worn thaig engravings. Varric sits atop the equipment dogcart with Bianca slung over one shoulder, shining rubies in his silk shirt. Their wagons fill up.

Anders walks up and down the stretch of bridge, bored and anxious all at once, listening to the steam roar miles beneath their feet.

There are natural vents in the Deep Roads, though he's only stumbled across a few others; they pour white smoke that makes everyone's clothes drip. An odd, tingling lyrium scent chases the heat. It tickles Merrill's nose, or so the elf says, and makes Anders's lungs itch. Droplets condense and carve paths through grime laden upon faces, though; any cleanliness is welcome by now. Water runs black as it trickles from the apostate's ash-yellow hair. Frosting his hands doesn't help for long – ice melts the moment it forms. Weary miners complain about slippery rocks, poor footing. Their employers won't hear of it. It's hard to breathe in the thick, damp air. Hawke looks ragged – her armor pieces begin to fog. The elf looks like a wet squirrel.

"I just sort of thought it would be cold here," Merrill rasps, enthusiasm hampered a bit by the feeling her skin was sloughing off. "Should have worn my summer clothes!"

Varric shakes his head from where he's perched upon a slab of silver runestone. "Don't look now – Daisy's wilting. Take this and wipe off your face, toots." The dwarf splashes his canteen onto a towel and tosses it. She misses, swiping too low; it hits the ground, but Merrill isn't deterred by a touch of dirt.

"It'll get colder once we're through here," Anders reassures. "Just a little longer now. Then we'll be past the pits. Then you'll freeze your little pinky toes off."

Merrill looks longingly at him. "I can't _wait_."

Even stoic Cala is suffering. Her plates begin to sag, unbuckled one-by-one, chucked onto the cart beside her smart dwarven friend. He collects them in a pile. The woman's too drained to care about how disheveled she's gotten. Anders has to lose his outer coat to the armor heap, running around in shirtsleeves that he was pretty sure were once a pale grey.

Those damned maps never mentioned this, by the way. He's sure to point this out to both Justice and Hawke.

It only gets worse as they push forward along the series of bridges. A prospector drops dead of heatstroke before the healer can lift his hands. They begin to run low on water reserves and switch to drinking diluted wine – warm, disgusting sweet grape. Blue crystals glow brightly in boulders, purified sapphire, but go untouched. The miners refuse to work until they leave this area behind. Bartrand hollers himself hoarse, face pinker than the magma that boils under these rocks. Varric decides maybe they won't clamber out quite as unscathed as he first hoped.

Anders feels like his feet are roasting inside their boots. It is unbearably hot.

"Damn," Hawke puffs, dark strands flinging around her face, slouching forward.

This is when the ogre comes.

**V.**

"_How did she die?" he would ask across the fireplace, treading on brittle ground._

_Cala's answer was full of teeth._

**VI.**

Anders isn't embarrassed of his scream – mostly because there's no time for it – as the hulking beast's arm hurtles wide and smashes into one side of an open wagon. Wood crunches. Gold chips go flying. An ox moans as it tips over the bridge, yoke snapping its neck, hooves plunging out of sight. Merrill cries for it later in the night, hugging both knees to her sunken chest. Now, though, there is no time. The ogre's claws are massive, horns as large as gnarled tree branches, fangs leaking drool like a brook. Its charge makes the caverns shake.

This is especially unfortunate, because the mage was standing only a few feet away from that ill-fated carriage.

Anders throws himself beneath the tipping cart, splinters raining onto his back, rolling to safety only moments before being crushed. But it is hardly safe down here. His ears ring with fear, muscles throbbing adrenaline, so he does not hear the monster roar. That powerful sound still rumbles through the concrete, though. He scrambles to escape the groaning wagon, sliding out from beneath a tire, groping blindly. His staff unclips and rolls off somewhere. Someone grabs his arm and pulls, and the apostate is on his feet again, and he is running down a length of bridge, only distantly recognizing it is Varric fleeing behind him.

Justice thunders _COWARD_, but Anders doesn't care. The ogre looks about. It loses interest in the fleeing healer, who moves far faster than these dwarves. He's already out-of-reach. He's probably tough and stringy game, anyway. Instead, the creature grabs for something nearer, fatter, more satisfying; it seizes a miner and _gnashes_. Blood spray and popping innards and vertebrae pulled apart and that man's body ends at the waist. Crossbow bolts litter its forearm, but the animal does not care. Intestines hang from its mouth like spaghetti noodles.

Anders pivots on a heel and lets fly a fireball. It hits one moment after Merrill's – the Dalish girl lands a searing blast against that scarred predator back. Leathery hide burns purple. It bellows. Through the heat smog, he can see its eyes are a horrible yellow, and readies another spell. The mage's heart flutters its wings against his ribcage like a trapped bird.

"_RELEASE ME,"_ Justice shouts. Anders shapes electricity between his palms and lets it go.

Smoke pours off the ogre's skin. It storms about, scattering their party. Two heavily-armored House Tethras guards are bowled over by one kick. Another is picked up and bitten, his head spat out like a watermelon seed. Guts splatter. Six more shafts hit in a volley before Bianca clicks 'empty.' Bolts bristle fleshily in one leg. One more cart is spilled – it is Bodahn's. The merchant hotfoots away in a horror, ash-faced, dragging Sandal by his hand.

"_I WILL FIGHT FOR YOU,"_ the spirit offers; Anders almost wants to accept, to cede responsibility, but is more afraid of what the survivors will do to a lone abomination than this darkspawn. And what Justice will do to them, in turn.

Because the fact is that Justice fears for his fragile mage, when battles grow heavy and close – a panic that feels like fury.

But he would never admit it.

Merrill is stunning in her bravery; she darts around Feddic's upturned wagon, its contents rolling every which way, to aim a Spirit Bolt at the ogre's neck. Volatile energy shears one prong off its rack, but does not cause lasting damage. It swipes at her. She springs back, nails lunging just short of the elf's stomach. Anders skids forward and tries to distract it with a fire cone. The titan swirls on him. It stomps, rattling pebbles on the walkway, smashing artifacts between its toes.

His heel catches a loose opal, and the healer slips.

Before the ogre can charge, Hawke yells, and it twists to look at her. Foul lips peel back to a growl. She bares her teeth back. Anders scrambles up on a sore hip, limping away, fumbling for a Petrify blast. Magic has numbed his hands. Justice's impatience boils every nerve ending from fingertip to wrist.

"_LET ME OUT BEFORE YOU DIE HERE!"_

Hawke is not nimble – but she has foresight, predicting where the creature's fists will fall before they land upon her. Its thigh is oozing steadily around Varric's bolts; she is ungraceful, her weapon too short to contend. Their dance is an ugly, frightening one. The Fereldan lunges, generating momentum, hardly avoiding blows. Her stave slashes at it calves. The ogre crushes an axe-warrior who attempts a flanking stab. Someone shoots an arrow into its collarbone. Merrill charges up another fireball. Anders's Petrify doesn't stick – he gropes for Barrier, instead.

He can't finish it. Not in time.

Because Hawke's knee suddenly buckles. A ninety-pound paw smashes down on her. It happens as quick and as passionlessly as that.

Anders shuts his eyes because he does not want to see the smear of her body.

But the scream is not hers.

And when the mage opens his eyes, searching for an explanation, he sees that killing palm has not _quite_ connected with the floor. It has stopped, as though attached to a puppeteer's string, about three feet above the tiles.

Hawke is hunkered under it, growling like a mabari, spear propped fierce and sharp between the ground and the ogre's hand.

Its nose thrusts bloodily through two colossal knuckles.

Walls quake, and – having impaled itself – the creature rears back, ripping Cala's spear from her grip, shaking furiously to dislodge it. She is splattered with tar. It howls.

Varric's next shot hits it directly between those piss-gold eyes. It punctures deep. It pricks brains. It kills. When the fiend collapses, everything rumbles – and then the Deep Roads are dreadfully, eerily silent – struggle drowned out by rushing steam.

And yet – just to be sure – Cala Hawke approaches the body, picks up an axe, and hacks at it until the head rolls free.

"It's done. It's dead. It's over, all right," the woman announces. She is shaking. Her frame is coated with thick, monstrous blood. And because she cannot wrestle her pike from its bones, they cut a path between carpals with a carpenter saw.

**VII.**

Anders watched Cala mull in silence.

Her blanket did not hide how both those shoulders hunched, sitting there upon the ground beside him. She had looked steadily downwards, searching for words in the dry, frosty Deep earth. Camp sounds echoed off dark stone. Miners shivered. Oxen breath misted in the pens. Bartrand Tethras hunkered down more sternly than ever, eyes glinting, cruel greed and hard command – unwilling to compromise. He did not poke around this quiet corner of camp, however. Here, it was still quiet enough to hear the fire pit hiss and pop. Embers pulsed faintly, because this musty air could sustain no more than a wintry, birch-needle glow. Gone were the vines they used to feed flames. Only lichens could survive this deep. Lichens, diamonds, ebony – and darkspawn.

They had scraped up plenty of both by now.

"She was brave," the surviving sister muttered – as though it were an embarrassing trait. Her body pulled tighter into itself beneath the clothing, leather and wool. Fibers itched in coffee hair and against her scar. "And kind. And as stupid as bleeding-heart bravery implies."

Anders considered it – the claims stony and harsh, but her voice thickened with grief.

"You never mentioned her name," he observed, pulling his coat tight.

"Bethany," she grunted. "_Bethany_ _Jeana Hawke –_ isn't that awful?" _Snort_. Then a pause – regretful, as though Hawke wished to take it back. "She was a good girl."

The apostate removed a loaf of bread he'd been given for dinner, tore it sloppily in two, and passed Hawke half. Minimalist, but still edible – at least, more so than Bodahn's ominously bubbling mushroom stew. Anders swore it growled at him when he walked by the cauldron. _'Very suspect, that.' _Justice's _Never Eat Dubious Plant Life Rule_ applied. She must've agreed, because the woman was hungrier than she was stubborn, and took it.

"You were close, then."

"I don't know," Cala muttered, disliking how the phrase fit. Her breath fogged. Her eyes skittered away, too dark to meet warm brown. "I loved her very much. With all I had. If that means we were close, I suppose we were." Small, calloused hands turned the rye about, worrying its edges. She ripped off a tasteless mouthful. It went down painfully. The gulp was cruel. Her memories were bittersweet and chastising. "She was the very best of our father. The very best of us, and I couldn't protect her."

"Did she share your particular talents, as it were?" He asked it around a gummy bite of bread.

Hawke nodded, gesturing with her crust. Crumbs snowed onto Anders's bedroll, but he brushed them away easily enough. "Mhm. And then some. She had an aptitude for it. Father's favorite – he never said so, but we all knew. Trained her up himself, from a little thing. His _pretty one_, you know. She wasn't like me. She was very proud to be what we are." The Fereldan chewed thoughtfully, sadly, tasting a part of her that was missing. "She would have liked you, I think."

The Deep Roads were a place of extremes – wretchedly hot and bitterly cold. It sprawled you out or made you huddle, helpless, puffing warmly into your hands. It was wickedly loud or sinister and quiet, full of gleaning points that could be gemstones as easily as hunting teeth. This place killed. That, above all, was clear; when it bred ogres, when it threatened to collapse, when it hammered Varric's fists against a door his Idol-mad brother slammed in their faces. _This_ place – miles underground, with a floor made of dwarf skeletons and ceiling charred by lava-ash – was hospitable to no one.

It was an appropriate backdrop for acquainting oneself to Hawke.

"Though… I don't know if you would've taken a shine to her. She could be…" Cala winced. "Petty."

The apostate felt a wolfish, ironic grin. "I'm not petty enough for you, am I?" he snipped.

She frowned.

"Mage," Hawke said, and the sincerity made her calm. "You are the farthest from petty I have ever met."

Strange – to, in this place of bare rock, come to know each other intimately without knowing each other at all.


	9. Remus

**Remus**

Hawke saw silver.

The first thing the occurred to Cala, having spent a lifetime smuggling her sister through remote ranch towns, was to defend. She did not twist that templar suit around, its massive pauldrons blocking off her family home, all royal purples and cresting sun and wax polish glinting in the Free March twilight; she did not think to check the face behind that mighty wall of back or all his dark hair. She did not see the familiar contours of his neck or elbows, or recognize her own stout-and-sturdy posture, or glimpse the grim reflection in Leandra's overflowing eyes. What she saw was her mother's fingernails digging helplessly into the heavy gauntlets, pulling backwards and unable to resist. What she _saw_ was her uncle, looming blankly in the doorway, ashen and bleak as a drunkard's ghost. It did not truly dawn on the woman that there was indeed a man inside. To Hawke, this creature was a suit – an impersonal, animal threat – incapable of reason or emotion, and deserving none of either from her.

She froze, heart choking – she flattened at the bottom of Gamlen's stairwell, dealt Anders a violent shove behind her, and ripped a knife from its belt loop.

"GET AWAY FROM MY MOTHER," Hawke screamed, and her palms seared stovetop red.

She had just been about to shout for the healer to run, to rip the spear off her back, to hurl something sharp – anything, everything – for this invader's head, to watch his blood splatter across the cinderblock-ceramic-adobe of Old City. She had just been about to make herself as much of a screen as was humanly possible, covering the mage's retreat; his heel caught the bottom stair awkwardly and buckled, sending Anders to the ground. She had been seconds away from snaring whatever tendril was left of Malcolm Hawke's legacy out from the pit of her gut and funneling it, roaring fire, through both outstretched hands.

Carver turned around, Leandra still clinging weakly to his forearm.

Cala stared at him for five dull, deadweight seconds before she recognized her brother behind all this decorum and tin.

When their tattered, limping troupe reached Kirkwall's gates three hours ago, Hawke had immediately dashed home to check in upon her mother. If anything was wrong, she did not mention it – for less than thirty minutes later, as dirt-encrusted and travel-haggard as she'd left – the woman reappeared to help Varric unload. Most of their supplies had been lost with Bartrand's caravans, save for what knapsacks and pockets could carry. Yet it was enough, the dwarf explained. Once their arrival had been sorted out, the satchels of old thaig pins, gilt carvings and ancient runestones consolidated into one package, Tethras beelined to an usurer he trusted. Worthy was a good man, so the merchant-prince promised, who would hold their trophies until buyers emerged for the rarer pieces. They could melt down the excess – have it molded into pretty statues, ladies' necklaces, strip out gemstone eyes of figurines and sell to jewelers. Whatever form these tokens left, they would rebound in the form of _currency_; hard, simple, teeth-sinking gold. _"Split four ways even,"_ he swore. _"And we'll all make a tidy profit."_

Varric's words were laden with metaphor and honey, of course… but because Cala had faith in her friend's actions, Anders did, too.

There had been few remaining business matters to consider after that, finances taken hostage by a savvy blond entrepreneur. They hauled the merchandise to Worthy's safes. They bid goodbye to Tethras – _"until tomorrow, m'lord and ladies,"_ he pledged, tossing out a ridiculous bow. They laughed about how he'd probably just robbed them all blind. They fantasized loudly about baths, remarked on how damned welcoming this awful birdcage looked after weeks of raw Deep Roads, took Merrill to her Alienage shack, and Anders cut three layers of bandage off those badly blistered elf feet. _"The first thing I'm going to do with my riches is buy a pair of shoes!" _the girl cried, shrieking as she sunk bloody toes into a hot salt pan. _"Fur-lined ones!"_

And then there really was nothing left to do – so Anders, having no home waiting but an empty clinic – shrugged and walked with Hawke to hers .

And here they were, now – standing in front of another disaster unraveling.

The healer lurched up on scraped palms and a twisted ankle, rattled by how hard she'd pushed him. Instinct and Justice told him to flee when that familiar Chantry uniform came into sharp relief – a jaunt through darkspawn tunnels only to come back for a noose! – but the way Hawke locked down kept him from it. Her eyes were imploding stars.

"Cala. I… didn't know you'd be home this early. Mother said you had business. I thought I'd have moved out before you came back," Carver said, as though it explained everything there was to him.

Hawke stared. Her mouth gaped and shut, stretching the scar from ear to jaw. The skinning blade hung from her hand.

"I should have told you," Leandra sobbed, drawing no warmth from her son's steel cuffs. Her hair was not silver but grey. They watched their eldest from the top of Gamlen's front steps. "I didn't think he would really come. That maybe training with them would knock some sense into him. Not this. I didn't think…"

"Why would you do this," seemed to leave Cala's throat in a breath.

She did not hear whatever he said in reply – if Carver could indeed have offered anything to salve this. His mouth moved. Something fumbling, low and insufficient probably passed through. Hawke did not want an answer. She was still fossilized on the cracked concrete, eyes boring _through_, the knife handle tripping her slackened fingers and shoulders plunging beside a bolted spine. The Fereldan needed badly to sit down but she did not. Her mouth banged on its hinges, parched. Her neck muscles constricted around tonsils and vocal chords. Cala's head began swinging wearily to and fro, chin dropped, as though her brother's firm excuses paralyzed the rest of her.

"How could you do it," she murmured again, lips barely fitting around the question. Her breathing tightened in pitch, gusty, too much air making the woman gasp for more. She let the blade clink. He had _talked_ about it, half-joking; he had admired their _conditioning_, but _this_…? "How could you do this? How could you…"

"Do _what_, Cala? Find something for myself? Mean something without-"

But Hawke had leapt the staircase and charged him before Carver could finish.

Fists, knuckles, claws – her hands were something in between, breaking on heavy plate, uncoordinated, bloody blows that sought red. Carver staggered backwards; there was nothing else he could do. Hawke struck like a hurricane wind. She hit him hard enough to loudly snap her fingers, make them _crack! _One, two, five, eight times she hit him – she hit him until dents banged into his breastplate, until nails tore skin off his face, until she came away with black hair shredded beneath them. He grabbed for her throat and it did not stop her. They crashed against Gamlen's door. Cala could not knock him down, but she could and she had punished her brother since they were children kicking in gravel roads. Her eyes burned colorless in their sockets. Her rage was incoherent – more animal sound than words. She did not know what she was doing save to make him _hurt_.

Their violence was compact; it took all of six seconds before Hawke's hands were swollen blue, leaving claw marks and burns seared across the holy sword insignia.

"HOW COULD YOU?" she screeched, spit and knuckles flying. The clangs drowned out the sound of their mother weeping and their uncle shouting for them to break apart.

"HAWKE!" Anders loped forward and seized her beneath the arms, hauling backwards – it was the only place he could reach. It was like grabbing the ribs of a rabid dog. "Hawke, STOP!"

Her elbows gouged wildly, only remotely aware of being hefting away, leather boots flailing midair. Carver looked attacked. Panic and white eyes – he clutched his face. "TRAITOR! WOLF! YOU CHAPEL- _BITCH_!"

"Stop it!" the mage shouted, grasp slipping, trying to keep hold on something made of twisting sinew and teeth. He was glaringly aware of the elves that dipped out of their homesteads, the fishwives lingering at windows, playing waifs who gathered around barrels to watch. It was impossible finding a place to latch… "He is your-"

"HE IS A CHANTRY BITCH-DOG!"

"HE IS YOUR BROTHER!" Anders had to holler it over her curses.

Cala slumped forward, a knee buckling beneath her, an apostate clinging oddly to her arms. She pulled free from the grip on her sleeve. He let her go. She panted on the cement. Her hands were purple, yellow and magic-red. They flattened across the ground, palms stuck with fine dirt. The rest of her was shaking. Carver looked like a schoolboy in shock. Leandra let loose a horrified sob into Gamlen's shoulder, dark eyes and creased lips; it seemed as though she had been weeping steadily since they left Kirkwall's gates. The mabari was barking wildly from inside.

"That," Hawke cussed, nose running, not caring if it made her mother cry, "is no brother of mine."

The templar recruit, disowned, pushed himself from their uncle's door planks. He straightened his cuirass, sobered. That wide warrior chin burned where his sister had laid two nails into it, skin still stuck beneath, but he gave no further indication of it bothering him. Carver stiffened. He looked resigned and indignant all at once. It was hard, somehow – even beyond the shined plate and dawn emblem – not to feel this young man had been wronged. He was a draft horse who resented his burdens, whipped and kicked whether the plow broke or not. "You can't choose, Cala," her brother said, soldier posture struggling to lay authority upon words that had festered a very long time. "You can't choose your family – you are damned with them. Just like I couldn't choose you. Or Father couldn't choose another daughter. Or Mother couldn't choose me to die in Beth's place."

"Carver-" wrung out of Leandra. She clutched at his arm again, wringing it. Her children's coldness squeezed her like a used washing cloth. Their names had become painful sounds. "Carver, you don't think that. You can't mean that…"

His eyes closed, groping for calm, making the boy looked even more like a Hawke. He lifted her hand and gently moved it from his gardbrace. "Don't, Mother. I have lived with this for more than a year. You _all_ wish it had been her here with you. You didn't need to tell me so. I saw you languor in it every day in this wretched house. You wish it had been me. But it doesn't matter what you wanted," he said, and gulped. "_I'm_ here. Bethany is dead."

"DON'T YOU _DARE_ TO SAY HER NAME, CARVER!" Cala roared, lurching forward as though she'd spring again, but losing momentum halfway. Her head hung forward. She spat on the ground.

"Cala," Leandra sobbed.

"It's YOUR fault!" she raged, shoulders bristling, a feral creature. "It's your fault she died! Called yourself a fucking king's army corporal? You should have protected _her_! Where the hell were you when we ever needed you? Running off to join the bloody war-horns? And now, what – THEM? To lick clean the Knight-Commander's codpiece?" Hawke's laugh was brittle and acid, like a snarl ripped backwards down her throat. "Hell with you! Trot off to the great crusade. Perhaps if you kill enough people like us you'll finally feel better about how you failed, but do not expect anything from ME. She was your sister, your twin… if you weren't such a wretched, selfish-" _Bark_. "YOU are the reason she's dead! You deserve- you deserve _everything_."

It was hate strong enough to double their mother over. Gamlen ran to hold her up. "Girl, _please_! That's enough. That's enough of this, damn it!" he snapped, arms full of his own sister. She looked apt to be sick – jaundiced, clutching her sides, crippled. "I won't stand for it anymore. I don't see why you always have to carry on like this! Can't you ever take it somewhere else? Can't you see what it does to your mother? Carver," their uncle puffed, sagged forward, trying to juggle Leandra upright. He was scolding and beseeching all at once. "Get this mess away from here!"

"She was your sister, too," was all the lad could say, expression pursed, the face of a man who weathered lashes. He looked white as a sheet beyond the metal shell.

"And you _spit_ on her memory! On Father! You are a piss stain on this family, Carver, and I hope you march yourself straight to hell!"

Leandra wailed and Gamlen dragged her towards the house with daggers in his eyes. "Fah! Blight on the both of you, then, damned brats… better on us all if you tear each other apart!"

And perhaps they might – indeed, they probably would have ripped out one another's throats but a month ago, shedding blood in Hightown's noonday plaza – but not now. Now, Carver was still. He did not shout or scream or hit. He stood tall and towerlike, biting back what wounds he could have dug.

Anders thought the young man's innards could have been coating his plackart and he would have said nothing more. Carver twisted about, halting them with a martyr's look, his battered restraint silencing Hawke but for her ragged, odious breaths. "Think what you will of me – all of you," he announced, sucking air to his stomach. "I know that's what you'll do, anyway. I don't expect approval from you. Say whatever you want; it doesn't matter. I am not so low that I would turn my own family to the Gallows. But I am tired of wasting here. I must go my own way."

"Carver," Gamlen stuttered, drained, propping Leandra between one shoulder and the apartment threshold. "Boy. I don't know what to s-"

"You don't need to say anything, Uncle. I've made my choice. So goodbye. Goodbye, Mother," he offered, neutrally enough, though she could not respond through the tears. There was no use. Gamlen closed the door.

The templar walked down his family's front stairwell.

And he stopped at his sister's knees.

"Cala," Carver began – her name left him with maturity that sat like a lopsided tunic on broad shoulders. "I've made peace with what I am. I hope you can say the same someday." He paused. "Take care of Mother and Ivan. I won't be very far." Hard as it was with Hawke sitting there on shins and ankles, hands broken against his armor, refusing to look at him – a gauntlet moved to flick sullenly at her familiar dark hair.

She jerked away from it.

"Stay away from me, Carver." Her voice was a dead buzz – lethally clear. "Never come near me or this house again. This is the last warning I'll give. Because if you cross me – if you endanger this family – I will kill you. I promise."

Anders was only relieved that Leandra had not been outside to hear her daughter say this.

Caver breathed deep. "You do what you have to, sister."

"I am not your sister," she said. She sat there for a few moments – until he had left them behind – until rising, coughing, and walking off quickly without the dignity to look Anders in the eye.

But for now, her brother swallowed Hawke's hate, shot a nod, and knocked the healer aside as though he did not see him.

There were no mage-hunters in the Hawke household.

**II.**

Anders found Cala – or, perhaps more accurately – Cala spotted Anders poking around Kirkwall's darkening harbor district one half-hour later, looking suspicious, sharp nose darting to and fro as he leant around shipping office corners only to turn away disappointed. She was not feeling particularly observant, but the Fereldan noticed his pale mane catch rising moonlight as the skiff sails did, now stark white against sea spray and the mauve hue of evening waves. He'd glance toward barrel columns, crates packed with exotic fruit preparing to be carted off for noble estates; then on to the lines of this bleached wharf, its curves tangled with rigging and anchor rope. Lanky elven dockworkers paid him little mind, trained to ignore shiftiness. A few armored dwarves crowding around the outbound galleons crossed their arms and squinted menacingly. A yellow kitten distracted him for a moment before tearing off into someone's home. No doubt he was easier to pick out than any sane apostate would've liked. The healer always looked a bit hunted, picking his way through a chain city full of mage-poachers – and from this overhead angle, that scraggly blond mane stuck out like a lamplight.

He wandered around for a few more minutes – scanning apprehensively for her and for any idle templars – before Hawke began to feel guilt, wedged two fingers against her teeth, and whistled.

Anders skittered and glanced up to find the woman perched on one ridge of an open warehouse roof. Cala's boots dangled. Factory smoke wheezed from Lowtown behind her, sickness against deep monastral blue. Dirt-caked skin provided camouflage. Her hair all but disappeared into it. She shrugged at him, irritable, and jerked her chin towards the spider-webbed stairwell sitting on an alley street. He dared to look surprised for a moment before warily scaling them, dipping beneath a clay archway, then appeared at the summit behind her.

"Hawke?" he asked, a redundant question, hiking up the badly-made steps. They must've been steeper than the wry mage suspected, too, because he was huffing a bit by the top, Deep Roads fatigue still wearing on them both. "Your uncle sent me to bring you back. You, ah. Left quickly?" (That was _one_ way of putting it… at least a bit more diplomatic than "stormed off," though not by much with his wincing tone.) "Says your mother's going to worry."

Hawke scowled and _shh_'ed the healer without standing up.

Anders found this business a little awkward, to tell true. He fidgeted with a ring on his coat. "This wouldn't be private property, is it? I'm thinking it is."

The glower increased. Her hands were wrapped in shabby cloth rolls. "I came up here to find some room to think," Cala told him, brows dented. "I don't mind if you join me. But if you're going to _talk_ at me, I'll ask you to leave."

"Hawke, your family thinks you've run off. Come back, won't you?"

"Eventually," she decided. The woman stopped looking at him, fixing her unparticular stare out on the steadily blackening sea. Its caps glinted like mercury spilt across saltwater. Sundermountain threw shadows and moss; the Wounded Coast cast sandy palm fronds into the tide. "_I_ don't run away. But I couldn't stay there, mage. That house… everyone crammed inside it," she rumbled, shoulders bristling, tension spiking with the revulsion and frustration of the disadvantaged poor. It was a familiar sound. "Eating over each other, sleeping over each other, _breathing_ over each other. It's so damned close. It's maddeningly close. I can't stand it. I need this. It's space. And quiet."

She flung an arm out towards the horizon, grimacing and retracting it when her knuckles poppled sharply. Anders padded over and kneeled beside her, attempting to snag the wrist and set them, but Cala tugged away.

"Don't," she instructed, a curt grunt, shielding the painfully curled digits against her collarbone. "I earned these."

The healer's mouth twisted, but he shrugged it off. "Your right to be in horrible pain, I guess. At least let me put them back in their sockets." And she did; he pulled off that pathetic excuse for bandaging and spread both Hawke's hands across the cool cement floor, fingers placed evenly apart. With little warning and a swift push downwards, his palm heels clicked ten fingers back into place. She yelped at the half-expected sting. To her credit, no falling tears – but Anders had sent a little curation magic to numb the nerves, anyway. No sense letting _stubborn_ dictate itself into _stupid_. What Cala didn't know wouldn't hurt her, though slamming bruised bones together certainly would. "There. Now you can have your bragging rights and hold a pen, too," he concluded, giving them back, but not without sliding in a: "_Weird_."

The abomination tossed the cloth aside, and thumped down next to Hawke, boots draped over the wall.

Justice suggested this was a distinctly bad idea – but then again, what did Justice know, anyway? _'Apart from a lot of words for 'duty' and how to cut a man from crown to naval.'_

"_Two skills that are exceedingly useful,"_ the spirit noted, but his host quieted him. Unwanted and relatively unneeded (for now, at least), Justice gave a metal harrumph and faded into the backdrops of consciousness. _"Very well. I will not help. Do not complain to me if you lose these new companions of yours."_

His parasite did not dislike Cala Hawke – not exactly. He did not care about mild outside influences enough to feed any aversion to her. And she was useful, the Ser admitted; there was a certain amount of respect demanded by anyone who did not flee from a starved ogre. That jaunt to a primeval thaig had distressed the ethereal crusader immensely, but while he labeled them all incurable breaknecks for risking gruesome death with only gold as a reward, could not lay full blame on her. _"_You_ are the fool who volunteered,"_ Justice never failed to remind him when Anders suffered below. But he was not wholly opposed to him keeping company with the Fereldan, who hated templars and killed them without misgiving, gutting through holy plate with the same cold necessity as farmers chopping ham pigs. Ah, yes. That Chantry episode with the candelabra had earned significant points with Justice, indeed. She could – potentially – be helpful. _"So long as you do not do something idiotic like join a mercenary guild."_

'_Me? ME – willingly joining anything? That would require a commitment. I hate commitment,' _the man sniffed._ 'Don't you know me at all, Justice?'_

"_Only too well. Do not remind me."_

'_And you don't butt your tin-head into things that don't concern you,' _the mage snipped. His spirit tagalong smoothed behind a curtain with one final puff.

Anders might have taken a slight popularity hit since he'd decided to weld his soul with a vengeful Fade creature and escape the Grey, but his graces were certainly not damaged enough to seek social advice from Justice.

"You know, there are worse organizations to sign on with, all things considered," he joked, a careful, blatant lie – but the man was unable to discuss what he'd watched explode in Old City seriously. It caused his stomach to bubble, lifting fine hackles, and made him afraid both for and of Hawke. What worth were his opinions, besides – to this woman who swore she scorned cowardice and turncoats more than anything? Anders was both. Jests and distraction were a finer balm than sympathy from a hypocrite. He only knew Cala a little – only a bit, one stumble through the underground' s worth – but it was enough to know what he should-not, could-not share. "Take the Wardens, for example. Not only is darkspawn blood hell to scrub out of your leathers, but the regalia is ugly. And the things townsfolk say to you: always 'griffon this, griffon that… yes, Ser Grey, we're so glad you put a stop to that nasty Blight, but what about the griffons?' Terrible." A pause. "And no one can seem to pronounce 'Weisshaupt' correctly. It's embarrassing. Gods-awful retirement plan, to boot. Though I have to admit… being an apostate doesn't make for much of one, either."

She chuffed, not quite humored.

"And if Varric's to be believed, you could always just buy the whole Gallows out from under them when our Deep Roads ships come in," Anders chimed in, his grin making him flinch. "Let Meredith and Entourage smite their way out of Darktown, instead. I know a charming warehouse might just be about to hit the rental market."

"Varric is rarely to be believed," Cala noted, but the imagery succeeded in that she managed to stop frowning for a moment.

"_Be wary about what you reveal and mind your tone,"_ the spirit counseled. _"Perhaps this Hawke can be trusted, but her brother is now a templar. There is a chance we might be able to exploit that. But for now, you do not know what harm this tie might bring upon you."_

'_Didn't I just tell you to sod off?'_ (A crude phrase borrowed from Oghren, but it was the most fitting thing to say.)

Justice grumbled himself into silence again.

"Do you know what really disgusts me – beyond all the rest of it? What really and truly makes me want to retch? He waited until I was gone," Cala snorted, shaking her head, gracelessly drawing Anders back to the reality outside his split-mind. "Scurried off to leave Mother a breath after I got back, didn't he – and yet couldn't look me in the eye, everyday, hustling off to train with them? Bastard," she spat. "Cowardly shit."

The mage cringed as he saw a silhouette of himself – fleeing Vigil's Keep with a stolen piece of Justice in his breast pocket, loping through cedars the dawn after Nate and Annie left for Denerim.

She choked on the swear and coughed.

"Sorry," Hawke said, trying to clear her throat into a fist. It sounded like it hurt. She looked sharply away, cross with Kirkwall. "You didn't need to see that."

Anders shrugged. "He could still come crawling back, you know. Now that the worst is over."

"You don't know my brother," Cala mumbled. "This has never been over. It _will_ never be over – wherever he is. I can't go back there yet."

The healer propped his elbows on both knees and leant forward, face towards the cloudy water that reached beyond this quay – stretched beyond bronze grates, crab cages, bait stalls, Alienage flags and wooden jetties clinking with fishing boats. Roll across to the south and beach your bark in Highever; to the west, it gouged deeper between Ferelden and the Free Marches; eastward, brine filtered into the algae-green Amaranthine. It was a dark water. This city's harbor smelled like a salt-block, sea silt laden with lost Imperium coins, fertilized with the bodies of ten thousand slaves. Sailors told horror tales of overseer captains pulled from their decks by skeletons and into that marine mass-grave. The stories varied – they would feature black porpoises, deepwater squid, red-eyed merfolk whipping hair like anemone beds, rays with wingspans larger than cottages – but all ended in violent penance. Anders had seen no such monsters during his time in Kirkwall. And yet there was proof enough in history where angler legends failed… there were fins that broke these shallow waves, decedents of the old sharks that chased behind Tevinter slaving-ships, chumming the whitecaps red. They made him think more and more of templars… but then again, what didn't, these days?

He looked down at the cracks in his heavy, battered boots. "We all have to go home someday, Hawke."

She sighed – and then stood up, reaching to hoist him, not feeling or caring about the bite of pinched muscles in her fingers.

"You are a good friend, mage," Cala said, framing him with a swollen hand clapped on each of his shoulders. "Take care."

Without a trace of ceremony – giving no indication she meant for or wanted his company – the Fereldan tramped down onto a slow evening street, leaving him to say only "Take care, Hawke" after her back.

Anders knew he could tell this person very few truths about himself, ugly knotholes poked in his character, because dogged Cala Hawke would hate him for it. He would never tell her about abandoning Reema, Jowan, Petra, Godwin, Finn – or how he left without knowing their fates, dashing off to leave everything unresolved. He could never account for Namaya, Milo, Sylve, Tabbie and her cousins – all of whom he had cared about in some way, only to leave them to lure the dogs when his birthright caught up with him. He would never explain exactly how or _why _he fled the Grey, heeding a compulsion to run the man could no longer define. Yet he was disturbed by what he recognized about himself while standing on that anchorage roof, wondering what would be left of his clinic, hands empty, watching Hawke head grimly back to face a household surrounded by loss.

Anders wasn't one to pine around shorelines, waxing poetic – the man walked back to Darktown, feeling odd about how very badly he wanted to tell her about Justice.


	10. Little Monsters

**Little Monsters**

A surprise awaited Anders beyond his boarded clinic door.

The mage fully expected – as he strolled through dim Darktown streets, winding around garbage barrels, trying to pull an awkward whistle from his belly – squatters might've hunkered down in that warehouse. This quarter of Kirkwall was chronically cramped; dismal as it looked, smelled and tasted, bodies had been packed shoulder-to-shoulder within the city underpinnings. Slumping hovels bumped corners; drunks fought over ditches to sleep in; children stuck their legs beneath tent flaps to tap neighbors' toes in overflowing lots. He couldn't hold it against a few urchins if they decided their absentee healer's cobweb-cluttered shack looked inviting compared to cold, compact, ant-spotted dirt plots. Urchins were easy to shoo off, after all.

He was slightly less-prepared for the escaped Tevinter slave.

Anders had gone about his rounds before turning in that night, too disturbed by the Hawkes for sleep just yet – and too unsettled by Justice's warnings about templar surveillance. He walked from doorstep-to-doorstep, quickly checking in on long-term patients; those still awake welcomed him gratefully, resent at his departure overpowered by relief. Missus Aberdale was still alive (somehow), puttering about on her gnarled willow cane. The Smithtons hadn't had their baby yet. Tomwise – that Red Iron supplier with the off-kilter jaw and torn ear – had successfully managed to keep his poisons from the local street rats' grabby mitts. Evelina had been away at some business in Hightown, Walter explained when the neighborhood doctor knocked (though wouldn't say exactly what that 'business' was); he'd shaken hands vigorously on their hut's stoop, but bid him not wake the others, considering how particularly excitable Cricket tended to be. Satisfied, Anders wandered off after telling the young man to drop by tomorrow morning if he was interested in making a few coppers – the clinic doubtless needed cleaning, and slum lads could always use extra coin.

They had been gone from Kirkwall a full month, yet it was remarkable how little the state of this shackled place had changed. Its sounds were intact – burrowing rats, chokedamp cough, sewer valves and lapping surf. The stench down here was still the same old rot: mildew, saltwater fish, elven sweat and seagull down. Makeshift fire-pits cast long shadows on canvas graffiti with horrid, howling mouths drawn from charcoal, and termites crawled their happy, creepy way through timeworn rafters overhead. All in all – everything was quite comfortingly stagnant.

'_You see, Justice? I told you it wouldn't make a difference. A month leave's more like a tea-break where the poor are concerned,'_ Anders noted smugly, pulled a clunky key-ring from his robe pocket, and gave it a good spin around one lengthy digit. Listening to that spirit grouse, he fished out the proper prong and stuck it home in a heavy warehouse lock. _'We'll haul ourselves up a little early, mop the place for good measure, and the old lit lantern is back in action just as it always was.'_

"_I certainly hope so, mage."_

'_Maker, you've got a bad attitude,' _he snorted, puffing blond bangs from his line of sight. Key janked casually in its hole and turned. One sharp blow of the healer's lips knocked a layer of dust from his trademark red lamp. Anders stuck one finger into his mouth, wetted it, then snapped open a tiny flame and touched nail to wick. It sparked to life. Brown eyes contracted then dilated as they grew used to new light; satisfied, he reached for the knob. _'There, now – you see? You see how easy that was? Everything stands just as we left it, no one died, and best of all – I didn't, either! Hell. I'll bet things run even more smoothly now that the Chantry's had time to cool their flaming knickers. Imagine what we can do with the expedition money, besides. New roof, maybe? Fix the rain holes? Glass in the windows?'_

"_Wonders unbidden."_

The man ignored Justice's cynicism. _'Oh, you're telling me. In fact,'_ he announced, jiggled the stuck door for a moment, rammed his shoulder into a few planks, then finally gave up and made to boot it open. _'I think this all is a little too good to be true.'_

Anders kicked open the clinic door.

He was met not with roosting pigeons and silence – but with a compact, rock-hard, blue-veined fist hurtling towards his face.

"_Snap"_ was an understatement.

Two fingers slammed into the mage's nose and broke it, blood bursting from his nostrils and down the front of Anders's coat. White erupted through every corner of his vision. Red droplets splattered soft feather tips; they stained grey cloth. His tear ducts overflowed in a heartbeat. Staggering backwards, seeing pink, the apostate groped for his staff and instead was send keeling backwards by a neat jab to the throat. He didn't even have time to choke. His airway closed immediately. Both heels were taken out from under him by a swipe of someone's leathered leg at his ankles. Long, gawky arms flailed, searching blindly for a corner to latch onto – or maybe a potion carafe to smash over this _Maker-damned-who-the-hell-son-of-a-bitch-that-hurt-you-bastard_'s skull. They found neither. Electricity sparkled uselessly, missing its target. Instead, Anders whuffed as his spine crashed flat upon an unforgiving patch of ground, swearing to God he'd just swallowed his Adam's apple, breath exploding from shocked lungs, spitting nasal-blood every which way.

"_GET UP! You are under attack!"_ Justice bellowed, a delayed alarm, as stunned as his host. The healer – mind reeling, barely able to breathe, palms prone and empty upon the broken bit of floorboard – lurched upwards... or, at least, he tried.

A bare foot stomped down on the mage's chest – five toes planted square upon his collarbone.

"WHY ARE YOU HERE?" the elf attached to them snarled, its eyes snake-slits of green in a dark patterned face. He gave no warning or indication of purpose – nothing a stepped-on doctor might use to identify his attacker – merely the single demand. Snowy hanks of hair bristled on the warriors' skull, unkempt and feral as his posture was. Clawed gauntlets strangled the hilt of a worn and indiscreet bastard sword. Hackles bristled. He showed a set of blunt, doglike teeth. "What do you seek, puppet? My head or my hide? Did your arrogant magister tell you I'd be an easy promotion?" A spit bullet shattered on the floor. His voice was barely human. "Answer me before I cut your throat."

Anders would have gladly responded to the strange, frothing little brute – if only his windpipe wasn't currently swollen shut.

But – as Justice never ceased to remind him afterwards – the spooked mage gave a very convincing "innocent healer" display, hands curled up frightfully and doing their very best to shield his face, expression cringing, body language properly meek and contrite. _"Revolting,"_ Ser Knight often remarked when it came to his host's… occasional… fearfulness, an insult to which Anders only shrugged and topped: _'But alive.'_

The invader had stood on him for another minute before curling a thin upper lip, nose-tip wrinkling, and – with one more painful, downwards _press_ for good measure – dismounted his poor, shivering, choking Darktown captive. He left a damned dirty smudge on Anders's nice robe, too.

"You're obviously not here for Danarius. His apprentices could never claim to be that incompetent," Insane Elf thoughtfully informed him.

Salt-to-the-wound as that petty dig was, this particular incompetent didn't bother himself with offense… actually, he had never felt quite so pleased to be dismissed. Still, they were hardly out of the woods – he and the spirit inside him. His gullet ached; his nose seared badly enough to disorient. Leaving no time for the human to shoot something clever back – or stand up, actually – Insane Elf dropped to his gristly haunches and fixed Anders with a narrow look. His stare was perhaps a touch less homicidal, but absolutely no friendlier. Tearing brown eyes did their best to avoid it. And he offered no help whatsoever to his gasping victim, watching suspiciously as the healer wrapped his own hand around a length of bruised neck and funneled energy into it. _'Unsympathetic, vulture-looking bastard…'_ with more than a dash of crazy. Only now able to breathe again, the apostate's free arm fumbled dumbly for his staff, clueless as to where it had rolled to.

Unable to find the stave, he hunched forward, pain blooming in four regions at once, squinting until something like vision returned. When it did, the bloody elf was still staring. Light and swirling eyesight turned that unsociable, foreign mug into a fuzzy plane of ink; tattoo curls and protruding cheekbones were haloed by an uncombed, colorless mane. Black armor and sunken eyes made it look more like a cat-pounced crow than a vulture, on second thought. Elbows propped upon kneecaps, it seemed not to notice the splinters between its toes. "What do you seek poking around here, then? Are you looking for handouts, fly," he grumbled, by no means offering, "or a place to sleep?"

Finally able to breathe again, Anders sucked cool air, gently cupped his tender snout, and cried: "What the hell did you do that for?" Then, angrier still: "I think you broke my gods-damned nose!"

"And you may count yourself fortunate for that." The warrior blinked at him, untroubled. Everything it said sounded like a threat, three octaves too deep for its size. "I would just as happily have broken your neck. Better for both of us, you are not a threat."

Popping the dislodged bone back into place, mending it with a pinched thumb and forefinger, Anders had just about endured enough of this belligerent guess-who's-trespassing game.

"Get the hell out of my building!" Justice bellowed through his mouth – fingers jolting fine, ice-dust blue. They might have been more provocative were it not for the scarlet drying in his stubble.

Insane Elf was apparently not impressed. "_Hmph_," it chuffed, head cocking. _'What is it with psychotic tree-huggers and taking after insects…?_' Unfortunately, the spirit was a bit too preoccupied with defensive flustering to appreciate this comment. Anders followed Justice's line of sight to his halberd, stomach dropping. The wrapped, well-loved weapon was currently trapped behind one murderous set of knife-ears. His heart hammered. "Your building, is it? I find that unlikely, considering what you clearly are. And if you considered that, you'd also consider yourself lucky I do not simply kill you. Move on, apostate. You will find no safe harbor from the templars with me." He rose with that, blade slung over a wiry shoulder. And, if insult hadn't compounded insult upon injury enough – the cocksure bastard took it upon himself to give his adversary's staff a little kick forward. "And, at any rate – if this was ever, in fact, your building – it isn't any longer."

Anders scooped up his stave, clattering inelegantly, and watched with unveiled disgust as the bare ball of this elf's right foot smashed a recluse spider flat.

"_He plays with fire. Let us kill this insolent, mage-hating wretch,"_ Justice suggested, only half-serious – and even knowing so much better (as he generally claimed to), disagreeing with a little righteous battery was hard.

'_We've been through this, Tinny. One more time: I'm an abomination, not a spirit-warrior. Sad as that makes you, it's a fact of life. If I personally set off to kill every mother-loathing, father-shaming, mage-hating wretch out there, I'd need an extra few thousand yous.'_

"_Very well. But I would at least like to wipe the sneer off his impudent, unnatural face."_

Now that was a motion any sane, irritated maleficar could get behind.

'_Sometimes I almost do like you better this way,' _Anders joked, and hefted himself up with the pike, overtaxed joints popping. _'Later. Maybe. Let's see what we're dealing with first.' _(Because picking fistfights with madcap brawlers didn't generally go very well for exhausted wizards with sore backs.)

"Look, you're obviously confused. You've got this all wrong. You're in a hospital. I'm a doctor," the man snapped, wiping pain-tears from both cheeks, skin pulling tight when he wiggled his newly-fixed nose. It still stung like a mud-wasp had been flushed into his sinuses. Make no mistake – this dapper Warden had absolutely no inclination to strap on heavy-plate and start dancing with fat-axes – but moments like these did occasionally make him wish he'd been born with the innate ability to become a three-hundred-pound barbarian chief instead.

The elf narrowed. Moss-colored eyes were trained on the menacing spearhead. "You are a mage, and a liar. And if you don't get out of my sight soon, you will be a corpse."

"You don't understand," Anders tried again, speaking as clearly and evenly as possible for a bloke who'd just had his face punched in. But the apostate backed up at this blatant warning, and his hands tightened sweat lines around the stave's metal rings. There'd be no flopping about if they clashed again; no Merrill antics. He was not going to soak another blow to the kisser. "Listen closely. I'm not a mage – not really. I'm a healer. I've been away from Kirkwall for a while, but the property is mine; ask anyone. And if you don't leave," the man threw in, shooting a razor-edge, irritated glance at his hostile tenant. "I'll call the guard."

Insane Elf stared at him hard for a moment, squinted – and then burst into deep, mocking laughter.

"You will do no such thing, mage. I know what the Marchers think of your kind. They'd sooner haul you off to their Gallows than shackle I."

Anders hated it when his enemies were right.

"And what do you propose we do, then? – because I'm not leaving. You – _you_ can move into any old crack in the wall. I need an office. I'm not going to stitch wounds on the street," he yapped, flinging a hand towards the exit, where dust wafted from high beams. A forearm scrubbed furiously at the blood flakes on his chin. "I'm asking you nicely, whoever you are. Your need is obviously less than theirs. So unless you're hemorrhaging, plagued or septic, get out."

"A good-intentioned mage in a 'free city' of Chains. This place truly is a special brand of hypocrisy."

Anders _really_ hated it when his enemies said things he agreed with.

"Did I stutter? Get OUT," the abomination demanded again, hardly aware how loudly he'd hollered it. There was no sign of movement from his trespasser. Damned belligerent fool just kept staring away, completely unimpressed. _'…and I'm going to have to fry this stupid elf in the middle of my floor. Perfect. Just when I thought things were going a little too smoothly.'_

All he wanted was one night's decent sleep in a rickety cot, a hot breakfast (that didn't consist of mushrooms or tubers), and maybe a bath. Was that too much for a man to ask?

"_Apparently,"_ Justice observed, voice echoing dryly, a phrase the apostate was sure his parasite had picked up from him. Then, on a more somber note:_ "If this creature is against our cause, and he is liable to report us, you must – to eliminate that chance – kill him. It would be wise to do this deed here and now, when you may dispose of the body without scrutiny of city guardsmen. Shall I assist you?"_

And for all his speeches about their so-called mission of mercy-through-freedom, Anders had to admit that the spirit was hard when he must be; and, as was usual, correct. Dispassion cooled off the mage's fingers. This stony lack of fear was a sign of Justice's "help," given without permission, but not unwelcome in the face of dangers that cannot be fled. But he swallowed the surge of Fade power – an offered strength with perilous consequences. _'I can handle this myself, thank you,_' the cocky Tower runaway dismissed. A normal amount of nature force would do. It was only one little elf, after all… a devious bastard of elf, to be sure (with a wicked-fast uppercut), but certainly one that could be dealt with sans blowing the entire roof off his clinic. _'Do you remember what happened last time you 'assisted' me indoors? Well…?' _No answer. The Good Knight taught temperance and fairness, maybe – but if you asked Anders, Justice always _did_ have a bit of a penchant for overkill.

"_Says the mortal who once threw a Tempest at a single templar."_

'_Well, yes, but that was hilarious.'_

"_He begged you for his life, Anders."_

'_Oh, do I ever remember. At first it was: 'Repent to your Maker, wicked maleficar! Let Andraste's light of lights preserve me against this vestige of corruption!' And then: 'Don't kill me, Ser mage, please – AGH, MY FACE, MY FACE, MY HELM IS MELTING ON MY FACE – GAHRGH.' Brilliant.'_

"_You should not laugh at those who are misguided. He was a proud warrior. On his knees."_

'_You're not making a very good case against my 'hilarious' argument…'_

A metaphorical kick to his short attention span, and the apostate was back to their immediate reality: bleeding nose; slivers deep in his thumb; perhaps five minutes from facing-off with a territorial Tevinter creation, who now beheld Anders and his odd, misty grin _very_ carefully.

"I won't tell you again, mage," the stranger said – and said so a moment before these very same words had left Anders's mouth, clapping his jaw shut. "It does not matter how well you mean. You will bring trouble here, as is your curse, and I want none of it. I am generous in allowing you to leave. Be gone."

It did not matter much how 'generous' this stoic character thought he was. Potential energy was already forming a cool, crackling ice-ball of nausea in the mage's core; focus that source (without vomiting), and mana would swell, direct itself through nerve spindles and into all ten fingers, then erupt spectacularly in the form of rime, fire, or lightning – a skilled elementalist need only choose which. Anders usually favored electricity, but given the dozens of breakables in this place, Winter's Grasp would do nicely. Yes – freeze the intruder, charge his staff with a well-placed bolt, and swing it steady towards that sneering head. Glossy shards of brain-matter would shatter like a stone through stained Chantry window glass. Then it was merely an issue of mopping up the blood smears before organs thawed out. Darktown's geography made this task easy; pitch a kidney or two over the rickety railing, and fish would feast grandly upon murder evidence.

Easy, sure – but it made Anders grimace.

'_Do we really need to kill him, exactly?' _the healer couldn't help but wonder. They did it all the time, killing threats – both random knife-brandishing variables as well as those infamous armored altar-boys – but the frequency of bloody acts did not make their aftertaste any better._ 'Maybe I'll just whip up some Paralysis… knock him a solid one upside the head. Rope him up and sit that violent mug in a sewage ditch. Being stuck down there for whatever length of time would teach anyone some manners. It's a lot less messy, besi-'_

"_Do you want an end like Karl Thekla's?"_

Anders's guts sank towards the mage's booted toes.

"_Then do as I say."_

He clawed one hand and thrust it towards the elf's wary face.

It was about half-a-second later – with unnatural speed –that the mage's operating table tipped over midair and hurtled towards him.

Anders tried his best to duck that rickety, cumbersome piece of furniture, but could not quite find the wiggle-room – he gasped, surface hitting flat against the apostate's chest. It took him backwards, bursting through those loosely-shut doors, flying out into the dark alley cul-de-sac. Badly-nailed wooden legs crunched off when they hit the threshold. Feathers wafted. A corner knocked the red paper lantern from its hook; the candle inside rolled out, wick snuffed. It clinked to a sad stop against the downed apostate, who was – for the second time tonight – sprawled on his back, the weight of a broken table knocking the air from both lungs, downed by an unstable enemy with serious hatred for magic. He wheezed, choked, winced. Skin scraped off both elbows through the ragged sleeves of under-tunic. Failed frost melted from his hands to wet the dirt. Within heartbeats, the elf was atop him – one punch slamming mage and table back to the cobbles before he could rise – a second blow reaching _through_ the dank air; _through_ the makeshift, insubstantial oak; _through_ every layer of traveling robe to grab Anders by the skin of his throat. He clenched.

The Fereldan, still pale-fisting his stave, swung out; the Tevinter caught it with one free hand. His other was glowing a translucent, incandescent blue.

Even after he'd been consecutively plowed over by furniture and strangled, this development was incredibly distracting.

"Is that-" Anders croaked, sputtering, blinking wildly at the fingers beneath his chin. "Is that lyrium?"

His answer was a set of sharp gauntlet knuckles gouging into his collarbone, points pricking, a carp looped by the gills. Blood trickled down.

"That _would_ be your first concern, wouldn't it, _mage_?" the elf spat, using this word like something profane. The so-called mage twisted like a trapped lizard. His staff was yanked away and tossed somewhere down the street, clattering. "Your predictability is vile. Your haughtiness is worse. I gave you a chance to save yourself this death; you rejected it. And so you can ponder exactly what it was that killed you as your body lies here next to your vocal chords!"

Anders wedged his knee beneath the table, shoving desperately at its underside with one palm heel, a breath from releasing the screaming Justice – whatever good that would have done against a rival whose arm phased through solid wood – when something far more gratifying happened.

He watched the metal blur of his lost pike arc overhead and crack this growling elf square in a temple.

The stranger slumped forward at first, dazed, crimson plinking on the bleached surgical table. His jaw slackened, molars grinding. Sage eyes crossed. The lyrium-hand pulled back through layers of cloth, leather and wood; it materialized, dabbed faintly at the swollen bar of walloped flesh along his scalp, and came away holding blood. Three strands of hair – once silvery – were stained crimson and caught in the joints of one metal glove. This was enough to give pause. He retreated with a pained hiss and wounded crawl that looked less like a civilized being and more like a warded-off crocodile.

Down this muted Darktown lane, Evelina twirled the staff without any flair, a bit rusty – but stamped it into the ground with her left fist full of fireball.

Nose blood, rumpled coat and all, Anders smiled stupidly from his stance on the floor. _"Hurrah, Evelina!"_ was hard not to belt out. _"Hurrah, women wandering about the slums at ungodly hours of night! As long as they've got magic – hurrah!"_

"If you're going to slaughter a free mage in this town, wretch, you'd best stow your bragging and cut to the chase," she ruffed, looking no less charming and heroic at an upside-down angle, careworn eyes gleaning black from the fire-glow that washed down her pitiful peasant's frock. Her expression was hateful. "Because from what I've heard, we breed like flies."

(A snide misquote from Knight-Commander Meredith and a timely intervention? Evelina Howard – drab, mousey spinster's bun, split-ends dotted with canvas dust; dingy complexion, dowdy life; dog-tired visage, deepened by premature wrinkles; screaming, sneezing, irritating gaggle of orphan children that loitered on everyone's doorstep – was a woman after his own heart.)

Fear had not entirely dissolved from the apostate, because his nemesis was still perched nearby… but a small crowd began to gather at the ruckus. Fisherman elves, migrant miners, Fereldan refugees unable to find work – they peeked outside their homes, suspicions arisen, displeased at discovering the quarter's only doctor had returned only to find himself pinned by foreigner threats. Several stepped outside. A few wielded rusty swords, kitchen knives and crude bludgeons made of pots or iron stokers. Within minutes, there was a small bandit squadron amassed of the desperately poor, muttering discontent in this begrimed courtyard; they had no personal love for Anders, perhaps, but he was a link to livelihood none could afford to lose. So here was Darktown, collective in its misery, prepared to fight for itself with whatever scraps were available to the unhappy downtrodden.

All would have been gutted swiftly by any mercenary worth his weight in salt, to be frank – save perhaps the witch at their head, who (halberd aside) looked trampled and malnourished enough that a strong gust might ail her – but there was something about communal power that frightened. Shoeless legs, tattered clothing, scowls with missing teeth and brawl scars formed a hair-raising battalion. Their disgruntled murmurs were disorienting, intimidating, reeked of witness reports and ungainly revenge. Their faces were angry, their glares made of eyes with many shapes; their stares were unified in how they brimmed with that fearful state of _purposelessness_ shared by any city's second-class.

The elf noted it, squinted in the light sphere of a brewing fireball, and – for whatever reason – nodded penitently, then slunk away, leaving Anders and his clinic well enough alone.

"_Hah. Spooked him off right-good, didn't we, then? Good riddance," _Osan Smithton chuffed, swatting the back of an elf he didn't recognize, ambling back to his apartment door. They said nothing fond or direct to the spark of their movement, even as he panted. One by one, the louder ones shuffled home, another minor battle won. Their miniature mob followed suit while Anders pushed the wrecked operating table off himself. Evelina helpfully extended one end of his staff, he grabbed it, and she pulled the healer upright, stewing red magic having since fallen to darkness in her left hand.

"My lady, am I ever glad to see you," was all Anders could really think to say, the dumb grin still plastered on his smudged, darkened, blood-smeared face. She shrugged, smiled back, and flicked a wolf spider off his shoulder. "Thanks!"

"Ah, well. Don't mention it. Luck, mostly – I just got home but a minute ago," the woman went on to explain, flipping his pike horizontal and handing it back with a strangely formal presentation. He accepted it gratefully. The staff snapped securely enough into his back-holster, a place it would not linger long within Kirkwall. "Walter mentioned you returned tonight, and considering how long you've been away, I thought I'd come check if you needed any help settling back in. As it turns out…" She flicked a pointed, fretful glance at the smashed furniture, lamp gathering dirt in a rain-rut. "I was right. Hope that wasn't expensive."

"Much less expensive than a new set of vocal chords. Who the hell was that whoreson, anyway? Someone you've seen before?" he asked, snorting, jerking a thumb towards the murky corridor his adversary fled into. Evelina grimaced rather than chuckled at the macabre joke. It was too 'almost true' for any serious humor. She gave another shrug at his question, clueless. "Drifter, then. Definitely not Alienage fare or a shy local. Would have recognized the tattoos. And the whole… living in my hospital bit." Anders tended to titter when nervous, Justice observed – one more facet of his chatty nature. He shook his head, scratched at a ponytail that looked browner than it was yellow at this point, and finally realized the other mage was still there. "Sorry. I'm a little rattled. Fistfights have that effect on me. How have you been? Walter said you've been holding down the fort without too much trouble – as always."

She brushed the question off with blasé confidence and bleary hazel eyes. "Oh, nothing new to report. There never is. Selling scarves up in Hightown now and I've got a pretty solid demand for them over by the Rose. I hate tip-toeing around up there, walking about the girls in this fusty old bodice and all, but we do what we must. Keeps my dinner pot full, at any rate. And that's a big dinner pot."

"Ah, yes. How is the herd? I mean – the children," he corrected sweetly, earning a _look_.

"They're having a fine time ripping apart my attempts at a home. Susan caught a cold in her head but she's better now, but nothing more serious than that. It's all old news. I'm guessing your… expedition went through without too much trouble?" A tug at one ear, winding fading auburn hair around her ring finger. Anders moved to straighten out what was left of his building's façade. "We weren't expecting you to be gone quite that long. And what with word spreading around that the main team had already cashed in... you know. Worried us." Her smile was flimsy; she watched the healer pick up his lantern, replace the candle, and hang it with a strange soberness that he did not see. "Some of us, at any rate."

"Well, there was a delay. It's a long story."

"They always are," the woman noted.

Anders propped the slab of broken table against his warehouse wall with a hefty bang. Someone's dog barked across the bay – a faint, dull echo. He dusted his hands and winked. "Hit a bump on the home-front, I'll admit, but things are much smoother at the moment."

"Ah, stop it," Evelina griped, rolling her eyes, trying to make her blush look like sarcasm. "Anyway, it's not as though there was a real fight. I do still remember a thing or two from my Circle days. Not the flashiest rescue, but it did its job."

"Not at all. You were magnificent. I could kiss you."

"As long as you wash your face first. You're a mess," she announced, cringing, not sure if his flirtations were hindered or amplified by the coal, smoke, unwashed coat and general state of disarray. Either way, you need not have told Anders he was covered in three sheets of Deep Roads soot. "And you smell like a mineshaft."

"If you're really that squeamish. Fair enough." Unfortunately, games were nearing their end tonight, because the ex-Warden didn't have quite the same degree of shamelessness or rascal motivation as he once did. He didn't bother pouting – wedged in the odd state of too shaken and too relieved. Instead, the apostate glanced into his now blissfully empty warehouse; its musty darkness was once again properly silent, even despite the wreckage. "At any rate. The night's not young and I'd better see to sorting out what's left of a clinic in there. Asked Walter to come by and help in the morning; things go as planned, we'll be open again tomorrow noontime, roundabouts. Call if you need anything."

"Will," she chirped, but flinched at the word – a disconcerting afterthought tainting the familiar routine. "Long as you never leave us for good, huh? It's been tense this past month. Wondering if you'd make it back."

"Make it back? That's the best you'd hoped?" he scoffed, slapping a shoulder. "Clearly you don't know what I'm capable of under duress. I never had even the slightest doubt."

She couldn't quite manage the smile. "We're hard-pressed down here without you, Anders. That's no lie."

Evelina left him to the skeleton of a home.

It was a troubling thought, he decided, lying stiffly on a hammock made of sack and spare twine… having someone depend upon you. Travelling light had become less of an option since the abomination established himself here; running came with heavier consequences than perhaps it ever had before. He felt it in the weight of his stitches, his healer's hands, his stomach that would not settle. This capacity to fail those he cared about was not new; Anders had abandoned countless friends, loved ones, individuals who had become family for a mage that by design had none. Doing so cut deep, brought incredibly shame, made him second-guess that fateful decision to begin this life of being hunted. Bad as they stung, these feelings could still be ignored – pushed into submission. Those hurts mended. And yet the knowledge he might fail an entire people stirred disquiet. He could betray them not only through cowardice, flight, or poor character… but death. In Darktown, they did not need his loyalty – they needed him alive.

It was a thought that simmered and churned, planting seeds beneath the self-service and panic of his mind. It was one that disturbed him as much as it had the browbeaten sick of Kirkwall… and one that Justice would not – would never – let him sleep into oblivion.


	11. Name Taking

**Name Taking**

It figures, really… that Anders would find community in a City of Chains, and lasting friendship in a Fade spirit.

The mage was hopping through Hightown Market – quite literally _hopping_, actually – battered old boots doing their best job of navigating bazaar tiles. Heels stamped flat on the squares, toes narrowly avoiding tile seams. Midday sun gleamed off the bits of silver studding in his coat. Blond hair bleached in the heat that rose from baking concrete. Belt buckle jangled against robe fabric, pinging out a rhythm to match the apostate's oddly merry mood. Soles squeaked to miss the mark here and there, catching pebble chips or an awkward landing, but one couldn't exactly flail their arms for balance in the full flower of Kirkwall noon. The healer's springy gate was less-than covert, but Anders did his best to make the bounces, skids and gangly walk look like soaring spirits rather than a childhood game of Don't-Step-on-the-Darkspawn-Cracks.

His success rate was… mediocre.

Anders probably would've been better off without a tune biting at the backs of his front teeth. It was difficult to look properly contrite whilst switching off between whispered whistles and off-key humming, particularly when you didn't know half the words to your chosen ballad. Appearances didn't much bother an exile, though – so long as they weren't _ugly_ or blatantly magical appearances. Besides, a little joy couldn't hurt after so much fretting and sweat shed down below. Happiness refused to be swallowed this otherwise bland Kirkwall weekday… partially because the sickeningly wet Free Marches climate finally browned into a warm, dry Kingsway; mostly because mild weather meant less lungrot and chokedamp slickening his clinic floors with bubbly mucus. Any dignified doctor was thankful when humid seasons ended, and the time had finally come to stop slipping every which-way on infected spit. Yes, indeed. If there was ever an occasion for mumbled singing in this filthy seaside stronghold, now was it.

"Some things cannot be repent, some coinage cannot be unspent… and maybe for once I'll actually manage to pay my rent!" (…which was excellent news, to think on it, because Coterie thugs clipping his purse strings and/or arteries in demand for mortgage interest was not the right sort of publicity for a Circle fugitive.)

"_Stop this. You are going to stumble and break your bones," _Justice warned, but Anders gave the harsh spirit a sound sod-off. He liked his version better. "The Dane and the Werewolf" had a stupid ending, anyway.

"_And your syllable count is horrendous."_

The mage flashed a sour face.

All this talk of syllables and merrymaking aside, Anders _did_ stop "fillying about" (as his parasite put it) long enough to weave into the trade kiosks – as the Merchants Guild forbade upending expensive blown glass, jewelry trees, hanging tunics, et cetera; and civilized society recommended _not_ slamming face-first into a guardsman's cuirass. He slid into the thoroughfare beneath a latticework arch that dripped butter vine and bees. It was a very pleasant hour to be kicking roundabout this marketplace. Servants chatted quietly amongst themselves, flipping through to-do lists. Vendors, drowsy-eyed from early-morning sales, rested beneath colorful tarp. Kirkwall flags cracked mightily overhead in the breezy, sluggish day, dulling those frightening brass eagle beaks that perched upon the Keep; cloud-cover made the grayish-blue of mountain sky look silver. Moss crumbled off Sundermount to leave its peaks a comfortable golden hue.

Everything somehow felt fresher in all this calmness. The Fereldan breathed deep and enjoyed the scent of salt-scoured walls without the rancid aftertaste of Darktown or docks fish. Bloody beef cuts dangled upon hooks, next to the pale-white skin of raw duck legs; they were accompanied by vibrant squash, blooming pot-plants for noble windowsills and the morning's milk pails. Cleaners kept biting flies well enough away, pewter fountains did not breed mosquitoes, and rock doves picked at one another complacently in cornice outcroppings.

Best of all – beyond agreeable, temperate scenery and the lazy city bazaar – was this: Anders actually found himself prancing about up here with a bit of money to spend. Perhaps Varric had sold them short, perhaps not; the man only knew his Deep Roads yield had begun with a steady trickle of silvers rather than an instant rush, accumulating slowly in a storebox beneath some creaky clinic floorboards. The delay was likely because their dwarven pawnbroker feared smuggling charges (a valid concern)… after all, ancient thaig craftsmanship wasn't exactly your standard art-fair sale. Ah, well. Coin was coin, and Worthy's bought as much as any haughty uptown banker's might.

Besides – by this point in his apostate career, Anders was very used to living poor.

He wasn't sure anyone really ever got used to centipedes eating the stuffing out of their pillows, however.

There was more revenue to be had than the archeological sort, though, in these last few balmy Free March months. The good doctor understood that Master Hubert's Bone Pit mines had been a fairly lucrative venture for those few Fereldans brave enough to tunnel their way into its depths; as such, several Darktown refugees now had stable jobs. Gritty, dangerous, soot-caked jobs chockfull of head injuries and minimal compensation… but wailing pickaxes against iron ore was preferable to wasting penniless in streets that smelled like horse piss. It was hard to dissuade them when work was so scarce. A handful of patients had even managed to _pay_ him, Andraste be praised.

All in all – while Anders was certainly not renting himself a veranda manor in By-Jove-I've-Rumpled-My-Lace-Cuffs-Dandy Quarter any time soon – there was a neat little sum set aside. Thus far, he'd invested it in some construction work; high time someone saw about fashioning that pathetic warehouse into something more like a hospital. Repairs were already underway… repairs that left his building cluttered with glass panels, steel frames, planks and hammers during daylight hours. It was a mess. The man had to skitter around splintered shards, pulling loose straw from his ponytail, brushing sawdust from both feathered shoulders. He had to eat standing up for all the woodchips, ignoring the taste of cinders in his bread. He'd write pages of manuscript while sitting on a rafter, ink bottles wedged into knotholes. Still, a muddled clinic was a definite step-up from "destitute shack ridden with termites and hostile squatters." And there were efforts to keep order intact, besides. Heaps of bedding were lugged to the waterside on a daily basis. Loose saws were picked up and leant safely against far walls. Walter often helped him mop up the renovators' dropped nails or broken bolts before they could slice into anyone's bare toes, but alas, even two sharp-eyed brooms couldn't catch everything. (Walter was a good lad. Anders wished he could afford to offer him lasting employment – since it was obvious the boy followed at his ankles, looking for odd jobs – but at least mopping up pine shavings and vomit kept him out of trouble.)

There was a bigger change that had taken root beneath these torpid floors of Kirkwall, though… one that transcended the frames of his sick-home.

He hopped over a dandelion weed, straightened up sober to walk past some dour templar recruit, and ducked under a well-known tradesman stall with kale tied to tent flaps and mayapples drying on the counter.

"Hello, Anders," Elegant greeted, as benign as ever, fingers stained with the bluepeas she pestled into juice. "I wondered when I'd see you next."

The mage was glad for a moment out of Hightown's sun-glare, stepping into the pinkish shade of this gazebo. It turned most everything beneath salmon or peach – eagle down on Anders's coat; sore knuckles; the herbalist's pallid, sun-curled hair, her face-paint bleeding into greenish craters. Charcoal looked heavier than usual around those lucid, pollen-puffed eyes. The air smelled powerfully of powdered hyacinth, primrose and ground chickweed. It wasn't an abrasive odor – merely somewhat strange when mingled with ham cuts and leather polish from the east market. But it didn't really bother Anders; the insides of his nostrils had pretty much been seared clean after extracting so much fish oil, anyway.

"Afternoon, Elegant," the apostate fired back, spinning a dangler of cinquefoil on its cord. He reached into a deep robe pocket and pulled out one handful of coppers, messily counting them out in his palm. "The usual, please. How's your husband?"

Elegant reached beneath the counter, removing several wicker bins full of satiny green stock. Ferns wilted in the early evening, stems curling. She shook off the dew. "Robert is doing well, thank you. How is your charity?"

"Well, thank you," Anders echoed – and it actually wasn't a lie.

The changes in Darktown were small, but they webbed into a dozen other changes that made life easier for a foreign surgeon and his charges.

Somewhere during his past month of trudging through steam vats, the people living beneath the Great Cage decided they valued their healer, apostate or not. He couldn't be sure of the reason, exactly – perhaps a caravan returning without him threw into sharp relief how unlikely it was anyone else would take his place? Either way, the transformation was intense and obvious. Kirkwall's gruesome underpinnings were not hospitable, but Anders began to believe that dark spot of the city genuinely wanted him there.

There had always been a protective tolerance – a _need_ for bandages, herb teas, salve and horsehair stitches – that kept villainous sorts from slicing his jugular and hawking crates of carafes, even in those first nerve-racking nights. But that reliance felt different now. It was looking more and more like honest gratitude. Osan Smithton helped him stick the popped entrance hinges back on and fixed the healer's snapped table free of charge. Evelina bought him a new lantern – warm, welcoming crimson paper instead of soiled burgundy. Abbey, Cedany and Terrowin – three little elven girls who swore they weren't _really_ like the trash in Madam Lusine's joint – had even commandeered a few ladders to paint in drippy, dramatic figures _"The Red Candle Clinic"_ over his door. Anders wasn't crazy about the name (or the amateur paint job), but he liked this sudden mood shift.

The undercity's canvas was rotten, its people poorly, but they tried their best to keep him.

All in all, things were looking… suspiciously optimistic for the runaway Warden, something that caused Justice no small amount of nervous tension. Much as he snorted "paranoid," the apostate, too, had to admit there hadn't been any explosions (of the accidental variety, anyway) roaring around him in quite some time. Life wasn't perfect. There was no generous stockpile of gold growing in his coffers, to be sure; at most, extra windfall made the acquisition of rare ingredients much easier on his nonexistent bank account (and his abused feet). But Meredith's soldiers had kept their uneasy distance, no overeager City Watch troopers banged in his door, and only six people had died in the healer's care this past fortnight.

And, well… Anders had no choice. He was left feeling pretty _good_ about this niche carved out in Kirkwall, actually; that the work he'd done there was positive, concrete, and not merely a flimsy shell to postpone Darktown's decay.

Elegant moved quickly. Precise handfuls of flora were sorted, bundled up and dropped in a small burlap sack – woodroot for stings, vervain seed, delicate feverfew to alleviate rheumatism pains. Yellowjackets buzzed about her, but blasé, practiced hands impatiently swatted them away. The woman was very accurate and amiable in mood, as usual, yet her speed revealed discomfort; Anders couldn't help feeling she worried about catching some nasty Darktown disease from him. Oh, well. Her loss. "I will say that married life makes it much easier to focus on my business. We haven't had much time to honeymoon, however… not with our Watch the way it is. That new Captain Vallen runs Robert ragged in drills. But such is the life of a guard. Broke the bank this week, did we?" A nod to the haphazard stack of coin he'd spilled onto her counter. "Would you like me to double your order?"

"Just pack in as much as this'll pay for. I trust you not to shortchange me. Shortplant me. Whatever."

Elegant nodded and slid another five goldenseal fronds into the bag. She looked tired, newlywed luminescence beginning to wear off into a creased forehead. The fringes of her carnival dress began to wilt; its bright train picked up cobblestone soot.

Anders rocked two and fro on his boots. "'Lady Elegant,'" the mage pointed out, eyeing that telltale family band on her long left finger. It was jasper and twisted sideways so as not to stain at the alchemy bench. "That has one hell of a ring to it."

"I know," she lamented, sighing, looking more matriarchal with wedding vows sitting on her shoulders. "It sounds like a _Blooming Rose_ alias, doesn't it, then?" The woman's brows seemed sparser and sleepy from concern. Even the not-so-secretly infamous Finest Rack of Hightown looked worn-out, which was – if you'd have asked him, or any other lecherous bastard in Kirkwall – nothing short of a bloody tragedy. He and that poison-smith, Tomwise, had a heated debate about it once; and Anders valiantly maintained there were certain regions of the female anatomy that could _never_ be too extravagant. Those elves were all nuts, anyway.

Of course, the (relatively) innocent thought was followed by one telltale, indignant snort. _"That seems most inappropriate."_

'_I am aware, Justice. You'll notice I didn't sing it out to the hilltops.'_

"_Hrm."_ The spirit's sign of resignation.

Anders was hoping to negotiate a few more potions than this tidy mountain of currency technically qualified for, however, so his opinion was far less honest than it otherwise might've been. "Oh, no. I wouldn't say that."

She flashed him a blunt look.

"Well, maybe just a little bit," the healer admitted.

Elegant sighed; she stacked then folded three catalpa leaves the size of dinner plates and tucked them away with his other purchases.

"A tad," he decided, thinking it over.

The bag was knotted up and passed over his pile of money.

"Don't miss tonight's premium lineup, opening with the tantalizing dance artistry of _Idunna the Exotic Wonder_ and _Lady Elegant_."

The unimpressed apothecary couldn't quite respond before someone cried out behind them, and five fingers suddenly flattened across Anders's sleeve.

Being surprised from behind generally was a very bad sign for any maleficar – no matter how well-funded or clever. And so when he heard his name in a woman's tone, harried by the wind-chimes and trading bells – dignified, assured and assertive – fear came faster than curiosity. The apostate froze, fingers that had once been drumming merrily away on a countertop turning to claws. His eyes widened. His casual grin dropped like an anchor. It was not a voice the Fereldan recognized; the hand rumpling his jacket was mature, stern and unfamiliar. A breath of panic locked him down. Justice must've sucked his abomination's gut in three inches.

Which was impressive – because after so many months of wolfing only stale crust, murky water, jerky and questionable vegetable stew; running about tenements like a rooster with its damned head lopped off – there wasn't a hell of a lot to be had in the gut department.

'_I knew things were going too well. I KNEW it,'_ Anders thought automatically, could have sworn it was the long-dead Rylock calling after his heels, and was relieved when he turned around to meet the chipper face of Madam Hawke.

Leandra's clear, crisply-shadowed eyes were blinking at him, startled at how rigid the doctor had gone; her mouth pursed, and then slackened. She withdrew the offending palm at one glimpse of his petrified expression. It fluttered immediately to her breastbone.

"Oh! I'm so sorry about that, serrah. Did I sneak up behind you?" Looking apologetic, the aging woman stepped backwards, offering air. Her grey hair was wound and beaded into two courtly braids; her collar had been snapped up with silver buttons far above their station. It should've been difficult to recognize a half-starved Lowtown mother in secondhand finery, but Madam Hawke wore chamber attire as though it had been stitched solely for her. She stood waiting for an answer like she'd tripped over his toes in someone's ballroom. "I was out shopping and just happened to see you across the stall, there. I surely hope I didn't scare you too badly. I didn't mean to," the lady added, plucked brows furrowed into a pout.

The healer allowed his heart to sink back to its proper place; he swallowed; he puffed out a long, jumpy whoosh of air.

"No, no, no, no. No. I'm fine," the mage promised through a horseshit smile. He'd left a sweat handprint on Elegant's counter, though. His voice cracked. "I'm splendid." Then, changing the subject: "How has the family been doing? Haven't seen your daughter around Darktown for a bit. Not to say that's altogether a bad thing…"

Anders's encounters with _The Travelling Hawke Show_ had been infrequent and largely unannounced since their return to Kirkwall. Merrill wasn't an unusual sight; she'd pop into the clinic every now and then, poking her ferret nose around, moseying about before sheepishly asking for directions back home. Varric occasionally waved him over to _The Hanged Man_ for complimentary drinks and conversation (some drinks; mostly conversation). He'd even run into the promoted Aveline once while waltzing by this very marketplace… tossed her a killing wink-and-salute. His sociable gesture was returned in the form of two very narrow green eyes. (You couldn't win them all. Besides, their dwarven bard was right: that broad was frightening.)

Hawke – Hawke herself, he'd seen maybe twice since their homecoming. The first occasion was when she'd checked in to make sure Master Tethras was, in fact, paying Anders his adventuring dues; the second, he'd stumbled into her by chance upon Kirkwall's wharf, and they chatted quayside for about thirty minutes before Cala mumbled something about "meeting an old boss." An exiled mage knew better than to ask any more than that. Red Iron business was not something well-meaning doctors should involve themselves in… one thing he and old Tinny agreed on.

"We've been keeping busy," Leandra chimed in, smiling. Wrinkles powdered in rose blush deepened around her temples. Incense – a mixture of thyme and ash – seemed to melt off the intricate morning gown she had chosen, bodice embroidered in imitation gold. It was powerful stuff… the homemade perfume, not the dyed stitches. Anders couldn't help it. He sneezed into his elbow. Fortunately, Lady Hawke didn't seem to notice. Her carrying basket was full of folded scarves, a loaf of crumbly rye, and several short flasks sloshing with liquid. There was no mention of that dreadful last evening he'd seen the Hawke family together in full. "Almost busier than I can explain in a shoreman's hour! I'm sure you can say the same. Have you had any… trouble?"

"None to speak of," the apostate said, picked up his ingredient satchel, and bid farewell to Elegant with a nod. He slung it over one shoulder. They moved out into the languid throng and slow-roasting sun. "So what brings you to Hightown today? Besides the haggling."

"And the fine company?" Her grin looked more like a wince in the wash of light.

"That, too."

"Real estate," Leandra announced, sounding slightly conspiratorial. "With Cala's horrible Deep Roads mess over – I was so relieved you went along, by the way; have I mentioned that? – we have a bit of money put away, and now it's time for Mother Dear to take over. Doing what I do best, in fact… social capital." Her expression grew sunnier before the explanations. "I've only just come from Seneschal Bran's office, actually. We've been petitioning to reclaim my parents' home. I told you I'm a native Kirkwaller, haven't I? Yes, well. It's no fortress, but… you've seen that shack Gamlen calls a house, if I recall." Anders remembered. "Better for everyone if we move on to greener pastures. Old City's crowded enough without two bickering Fereldan chickens and that great big dog, isn't it?"

She stopped, hamper balanced in a crook of her arm.

"Might you have the time to accompany an old woman to a late lunch? My treat, of course."

Darktown's sole doctor wasn't entirely sure he wanted himself filed away in Madam Hawke's "social capital" list, but her well-spoken, familial air and sun-squinting smile was a very disarming combination. He fidgeted. "That's kind of you. But I should probably be heading back to my clinic. Fresh produce, you know. You have to grind up the water stalks before they dry out." For good measure, Anders gave the plant bundle a pat.

Leandra frowned, sweet-and-saccharine auntie façade soldiering up. "Oh, come now. I'm certain they'll keep long enough for a quick something to eat. Aveline is off-duty in a half-hour and she's promised to meet me at _The Page's Corner_. You really should come along. I'm sure you'd both have interesting stories to share."

If he'd considered relenting even for the briefest moment, Aveline Vallen removed all Anders's doubts.

"You know, I'd love to – honestly – but I just can't. Can't do it," the mage shot. "Impossible. Another time?" (Or not. He didn't need the crunchy, spit-shined new Guard Captain of Kirkwall asking questions about that night, or the blood cooling in the Chantry courtyard. He also didn't need her folding those meaty arms across a table spread of teacups and barking, plain as day: "So how did you end up slogging down through darkspawn runs with _my_ Hawkes?")

The lady's bottom lip jutted out like any budding debutante's might. "Oh. That's too bad. Well, I insist you at least walk with me to the plaza. It wouldn't do to be seen wandering about entirely bereft of an escort." And she slipped her gloved hand through Anders's elbow before he could protest or scurry away.

So off they went.

"You must come and let me host a real dinner once our living situation is sorted out," Leandra announced, leading the mage about Hightown like a haltered, bewildered lamb. He barely got a word in edgewise. They were through the market, under a shady row of balusters, and around a hedge-lined corner within minutes. "I'd still haven't shown you our gratitude, and you owe me a chance at providing better hospitality! We wouldn't have it any other way. And besides, I'd very much like it if you could speak to my daughter. Cala is a good girl, but she's fallen in with the wrong sort of people, and you're more the crowd I'd hope for her to associate with." It was clear the woman already had this all planned out. "I don't begrudge mercenaries on principle," Madam Hawke swore, not quite convincing, "but when you've got a choice, you might as well focus your efforts on humanitarian goals rather than neck-breaking for profit. These Red Iron louts never seem to _leave_, either. It disturbs me, I admit. Perhaps you can find something positive for her to invest in."

"I don't-" was all he could spit out.

"I know Darktown's not a gentle area to be gallivanting about in, but I can't imagine helping those sad refugees would bring about any more danger than working with Garrett Meeran." She said the name with a sniff and extreme distaste. "Do you have any other offices? Maybe she could find something to do in the Alienage? She has a friend there, I believe – Merrill was the name. I do feel so badly for our plucky, downtrodden elven neighbors."

"Merrill-"

"She's such a precious thing, isn't she? I'd never met a Dalish before, and I expected them to be – well, cold – but that girl is a perfect dear." She tugged Anders up a smooth flight of flagstone stairs. A sharp edifice dropped away to reveal greening statues and government columns; the glittering Viscount's Way arced over restaurant facades, gardens and gentry estates. Caped couriers darted past in every direction. One knocked into the healer, brazen as a beach day, and he would've shoved back were it not for his present companion. "That's precisely what I mean, though. Even if you don't have any projects underway for her, I'd just like to see Cala mingling with a better class of people. People like _her_, you know. Nice, normal… particularly 'talented' people."

In some other dimension, Justice must've shaken his head. _"The poor woman. She has no _idea_."_

The nice, normal abomination nodded.

"I know what you-"

"I mean, it's no secret she struggles with it. And me being… how would you put it? Mundane. Non-special." Her hands flipped like moth wings in the ricocheting light. "Either way, I'm not really sure how to advise her. Magic has always run in our family and it's never been welcome beyond me. Were it only that her father was still alive, I wouldn't have to worry myself so much over it, but hindsight's no use in the face of a mother's problems. It's important for a _talented person_ to have a support group, don't you think?"

Did Grey Wardens, a spurned Howe, a re-embodied spirit with a slight lisp, and one fat little dwarven gangster qualify as a "support group?" Anders decided it was wisest not wondering about it. "Where are you moving, if I might ask?"

"Oh," Leandra said, linking her fingers, properly modest – but a ghost of smugness slid beneath the woman's smile. "Just there."

_There_ – just across Hightown's main lot – the manse stood three stories tall and its bay windows scattered the sunrays.

"There!" Anders's jaw was swinging open.

"Oh, yes. I haven't been inside since I was a silly tramp of a thing, but birthright is birthright."

"It's a mansion!"

"Well, not really. It's more of a manor."

It wasn't that noble lineage impressed the apostate – or meant anything solid to him at all, honestly, after toddling around behind rude, bearish old Nate for many months and miles – but it was a bit disorienting suddenly discovering that the chatty, harmless slum widow hanging onto your arm had inherited a damned _castle_. Its colonnades were heavy with overgrown ivy, crests torn from the streetwall, and dust coated stained glass that towered at thrice his height. The knockers were lionheads and would've fit right on a Weisshaupt drawbridge.

And that meant Hawke – maimed, uncombed, limping _Hawke_…

"Now you've got that startled look again, Ser mage. Did I say something out-of-turn?"

Anders clapped his mouth shut and stopped the wild blinking of his eyes.

"Um, no. No, you didn't. I'm just… erm. Surprised! I didn't realize. Er, I hadn't expected…" It was, apparently, the doctor's turn to babble aimlessly. "Well, you know. It's not something you think about. Your surname sounds so Fereldan, and me not being a Waller – I didn't recognize it as, you know, the bloody aristocracy." (Swearing at "the bloody aristocracy" was probably not the most graceful course of action, but one didn't find out starving Lowtown families with sell-sword daughters were bona fide lost upper-crust every day.)

"Oh, we haven't been the bloody aristocracy for many years now," Leandra mused, but her voice was undeniably pleased. "Gave it all up for love, foolish girl I was. But with coin, persistence and a bit of luck, perhaps our orphaned house will at least return to its rightful owner's hands. Look at that rot. And those hornet nests up in the gutters! It's shameful, really. You'd think goblins had moved in. I'm so glad my mother didn't live to see this."

"And you'll be Messere Hawke…"

"Well – not _Hawke_, dear. I imagine the census will restore my maiden name."

Anders had to ask.

**-oOo-**

"_Amell!"_

_He'd tell what little he remembered of this story to Cala some years later, snickering into his palm across a coffee table. It was a funny tale, the mage thought – a truth meant to amuse, but one that instead revealed a strange sense of _wanting_ Anders never quite knew he had. _

The Tower was an upsetting place to a child. Kinloch Hold impressed – with its granite peak, perilous blue-water lake, high ceilings, yawning entryway and crushing double-doors sealed by the dozen dragon-bone locks. It was more than enough to daunt an orphan boy. It was more than enough to scare the scrawny, ash-haired pup who had been carried beneath these spiked arches with arms around young Squire Rylock's neck just that morning. She had set him down in the nursery vestibule at her master's beck, then summoned an Enchanter to begin processing. And she had waited there, road-ragged and fourteen, while her senior templars hulked to the barracks for hot food and baths. He had not given the armored girl much choice. He latched onto to her skirts the moment his feet touched the cold marble floor.

Rylock said nothing to console him – her resolve firm, but temperament shaken after so many miles and families rent by Chantry law. She had never attended a recruiting before. Hard care was necessary, the trainee knew, collecting mage-children before they could understand or spoil their souls... but that did not mean watching, stiff-lipped, was easy. This trip had even been a relatively short one. Sers Beatrice and Priscilla (for the Order usually sent their women when it came to babes-in-arms) led a five-man train down the River Dane and back – responding to private letters, government warnings, and rumors in tandem. They picked up disowned noble-stock with latent power, dragged accused young witches from informal jails, snatched daughters and sons from their parents' coddling. They returned with a covered wagon full of children bound for apprenticeship… some of them skipping beside the wooden wheels, some wailing, some napping, some tied in yards of soft rope. Many of them were barely old enough to run. Two were older than this rigid, wan, unhappy squire, who slogged along the muddy tracks with cotton stuffed in both ears.

No matter where you walked, though, you could not escape the sound. Common folk called them "crying caravans." They were a common sight in the damp Ferelden spring.

Their last stop had been at a Highever orphanage, where some bleak-faced nanny hustled out and waved them down. "Mage-flesh," she'd called, shrill over the plodding of horse shoes. "We have mage-flesh here!"

And the duenna plucked up this small boy before he could react – big, toffee eyes blinking stupidly; trouser knees ripped – then handed him to Beatrice… who promptly turned about and plopped a child into Rylock's arm.

It was not the templar way to cosset magi, no matter their age. The squire watched her sabatons, flexed uncomfortably, and coughed into a balled-up fist. She would not tell fanciful tales or play fairy games. She was not designed to mother. But she almost allowed her gauntlet to lie atop the child's crown before a knob twisted, the door opened, and Rylock jerked it away.

The girl was glad to see newly-promoted Enchanter Wynne's wry, long-legged form sliding quietly into view. They had minimal contact at this stage of their lives, true, but it was not difficult to sense _wisdom_ in an elder and offer due respect. Her confidence and tight braid projected authority; the woman's calm clarity superseded even Ser Priscilla's curt orders, a stable force, winning debate not with protest but with enduring rationale. There was no need to raise one's voice with this instructor, who tested and defended her students harshly, but still found smiles for barracks recruits. All the templars liked Wynne. She was secure and cooperative without feeling lesser for it. And red felt, coolness and jasmine lotion was a far better blend than the alternative... which came in varying flavors of preachy, stoic, tome-buried or resentful. Rylock had been worried Uldred would reach them first. She did not want to pass the boy to stern, unaccommodating Uldred. No scared child deserved a welcome like that.

Especially not this one, who had not once sobbed or screamed since the gravel paths took them back toward Calenhad. Apparently he'd yanked some nursemaid's cane away and shot it across the meal hall without moving a muscle. They did not know anything else about him, though – save for the little hands that clutched her chain coif somewhere around West Hill and hadn't let go. _"Tis' a horrible job," _Priscilla said, jerking her chin towards the cart full of weeping children. _"But every now and then you get a quiet one, and that's all right. Makes you feel good, doesn't it? Like you're doing them a favor."_ Rylock shrugged. She let him ride on her back the entire way.

The mage wasted no time in making her matronhood known, and the templar did not interfere. Knighthood meant everything to this squire, sullen and friendless, but she dreaded the possibility of someday outranking Wynne. Telling the unruffled, frighteningly intelligent Enchanter what to do was unthinkable. "Hello, serrah," she greeted, either from courtesy or because she did not know this girl's name. There was friendliness for a growing Tower guardian in this brief hello, but all in all, little interest in her. "I hope your trip went well. I'm told you have someone for us. Who is this handsome young man? And why isn't he with his classmates by now?"

She smiled and leant forward. The boy hid behind Rylock's leg.

"Sorry. To bother you," the templar mumbled. "But we don't have his records. We didn't know how to list him. Ser Priscilla said to wait for y-"

"Ah, Ser Priscilla. So by-the-book. You could've always asked him. And what is your name?" Wynne wondered aloud, kindly squatting down to look the child in his broad bay eyes. There was no answer. The boy pressed his face into the back of Rylock's knee.

"I'm not sure what it is, Enchanter. That's the problem. We picked him up from the Highever orphanage; his papers just said 'boy.' I don't know if they called him anything. All the caretaker could tell us was that his mother claimed to have traveled from the Merdaine, roundabout, and—"

"He does look a bit like an Ander, doesn't he?" The Enchanter nodded, cocking her head, grinning at the way their new charge shrunk away. "Sharp nose. Light hair. All common traits for Anders."

She reached out to take the boy by his wrist, to uncurl his fingers from purple cloth – and that is when the curtain fell off its rack behind them.

Wynne didn't have to double-check; she knew from the _'snap!'_ and pounding of petite, scuttling slippers that it was "_Amell_."

"Reema," Wynne shouted, smile hardening into a scowl. She stood up and swept halfway across the lobby, chasing after two sets of footsteps racing down a servant hall. "Reema Amell! Don't pretend you can't hear me talking to you! I saw you there! You may as well turn around – you'll be getting yours now or later tonight! Who is that with you?" The mastermind was still fleeing, it seemed, having skittered out of her teacher's sight – but she had not been alone. No, not quite. One offender froze in his miniature tunic. Shoulders hunched. A pudgy face contorted. He hadn't been able to keep up. "Jowan, come _here_! Come here this instant!"

The dark-haired boy – no older than this unclaimed Highever waif – stuck his thumb into his mouth, bit down, and shuffled forward with eyes squeezed shut. He looked like a martyr walking to the execution block.

The Enchanter was not sympathetic. "Where is your sitter?" she demanded. Rylock felt the Ander-child flinch and try to disappear beneath her skirt. "Did you run off from Owain again? You'd better answer me!"

"I- not mean- be mad," he stuttered, tearing fiercely, preparing for waterworks. Wynne pulled the fist out of his mouth, ignoring the drool. "Reema said-"

"Do you do everything Reema says? If she told you to strip naked and jump off the Tower-top, would you do it?"

They were only tots, then – ickle sticky-palmed, stammering things – but even in short pants, Jowan would've done whatever it was Reema Amell told him to.

He hung his head and blubbered.

"Today of all days, I see. Maker. My knees are getting too old for this. Good lady knight, would you be so kind as to please chase _her_ down and take these two troublemakers back to the children's dormitory? Thank you. I'll get this one cleaned up and fitted for his first robes," the mage instructed, massaging her forehead. Rylock nodded and went.

She had to pry tiny hands from her train.

"Well," Wynne sighed, and watched them go. "Come on, then, our little Anders."

The boy was five years old. He thought it was his name.

Eventually it was.

**-oOo-**

Leandra craned her neck over the Hightown piazza and pointed towards a fenced-in brasserie. Her face lit up with recognition. "Oh! There's Aveline!" she cried, lifting to tip-toes, excitedly waving one arm. There was the back of a very red head sitting at one picket table, sipping what appeared to be sun tea. "Aveline!"

Anders didn't say anything – about the estate, himself, the name Amell. He wished Madam Hawke a rushed goodbye and scampered off before Captain Vallen glimpsed anything but the backside of his coat.

He did not slow down until his boots hit the dirt of Darktown.

The apostate had a hundred questions, but all went unvoiced. His lungs felt like they'd sealed shut. There was confusion swimming in his head, and when Anders forked left towards the bayside streets, he tried to blink it away. It could have been coincidence, but wasn't – the healer was sure of this, though he had no proof and didn't know why. They did not look alike. They did not sound alike. He had no clue if Leandra and her children had ever known about Reema, a gifted girl some spoiled sister or humiliated aunt or religious cousin didn't want mucking up the regality of their name. There was nothing to suggest this was anything but a very distant link between two modern units of an old Free March house. But it _was_ Amell. Unless, perhaps, he had misheard the woman – a scapegoat possibility – one still far more likely than simple happenstance. The blood line between the Hawkes and his childhood friend was thinned by miles and Fereldan blood until it looked more like water, but there was no duplicating noble crests.

Reema said her family was from Markham; said her father had been some sort of caliph or duke or esquire or whatever – he hadn't listened. One did not expect the past to ever matter in Kinloch Hold, for you did not exist beyond it. But he _had_ to know. He had to know now. How could a sane man stand not knowing? And so the mage would ask Cala these questions when he next saw her, Anders decided.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was best to let that name lie still and forgotten, as Karl had taught him a long time ago.

He did not know where she was, how she fared or even if his old friend was still alive – there was nothing to gain from digging up Reema Amell but shame and a returning sense of cowardice, inadequacy, and abandoned beliefs.

"_Focus your eyes forward, mage,"_ Justice said. _"You have more ahead of you than behind you." _

Anders wanted to shout at himself for not understanding, but realized how madcap that would've looked – so he shook off the haze of what came before and blinked. This terrain was familiar. Sky shone clear beyond the flapping canvas. There were pigeons nesting overhead, shedding into the sea. Elven children played what looked to be hide-and-seek down the alleyway, flitting about on dirty soles, climbing pyramids made of upturned garbage bins. Tomwise was arguing with some Coterie bruiser over potion prices two streets over. James Silves ambled by and tossed the doctor a wave, strolling in from the seashore, carrying a bushel of laundry for his sick father. This terrain was familiar; for now, it was the closest he had to home.

Anders breathed out.

'_I really hate it how you're always right.'_

There was something that felt like smiling from within – a spirit's affection for their host.

"_Yes, I will remind you of this the next time you ignore me." _

As much as he'd rather fling back an insult, more important than the frustration and the mocking and the constant, tin-can voice ringing in his head was the knowledge that there would – undoubtedly – be 'next time.' There always was with Justice, for the Fade knight could no more forsake him than a soul its body. It was a contract they had written in sinew and shared thoughts. And – rules of possession aside – the abomination had a feeling this arrogant being would sooner face destruction than abandon someone he considered his charge. There was comfort in that. For all the resentment and disappointment and ironclad pressure to _change_, there was relief in knowing that he would never be left behind.

'_You make a better friend than I ever did, Justice.'_

"_Perhaps. But one way or another, mage, we must come to earn what we receive – in justice and in friendship." _

On the walk back home, Anders found a cat.


	12. Table Manners

**Table Manners**

When Cala Hawke walked into Red Candle Clinic that early Harvestmere morning, Anders had been in the flattering process of shoveling oatmeal into his mouth.

Nate's falcon-sized snout had scrunched up many a time in Vigil's Keep, watching their mage compatriot stuff-and-swallow the contents of his dinner as though trying to break some sick sort of record. He'd wolf biscuits, inhale bowls of rice, rip through a pheasant leg and wipe off his greasy nose in an elbow crook. No one thought much of starved apostates, generally speaking; like any lambing criminals, it was assumed they spent most meals trying to suck nutrients from weeds or squirrel kebobs. Fugitives didn't have the luxury to sit down and feast in gourmand fashion – they didn't really have time enough to even taste their food. _"Pig," _Howe noted, but Anders didn't care. Men like him gobbled down whatever was available with little sense of flavor or fine manners… which was fortunate, because before shacking up with Ferelden's Greys, he usually fought down mealy bluegill; hard, wormy fruit; and black walnuts that tasted like dirt.

"_You do know this hen is dead, don't you?" Nathaniel would ask, slate eyes crinkled. "It's not going to fly away before you can smear it all over your face. You could slow down. Maybe take a breath once and awhile. Even use silverware."_

Bad manners die hard, but the best way to shut old Nate up was reaching across the tablecloth and plunking his wineglass over.

…_and he'd screech back with liquid dripping onto his knees and a plate full of claret. "Maker damn it, Anders! Again?" Three dwarves would crumple with laughter; one sour, whip-crack elf had to bite her tongue. "Why do _I _always have to sit across from the gods-damned Wild Boy of the Bannorn?"_

Clever as Howe the Junior was when angry, this upstanding healer didn't really want "Wild Boy of the Bannorn" following him through Kirkwall. Anders leapt up. He dropped the spoon. It disappeared beneath cold, watery wheat grain.

"Hawke," the apostate choked. She didn't react to surprising him, but there was a small, welcoming wrinkle beneath her eyelids.

"Hello, mage," she said. Cala looked pleasant enough, toeing the line between gentry life and those hardscrabble legionnaire deeds she'd earned a reputation for. She stared evenly at Anders from the open doorway. Her lounge jacket hung loosely upon sturdy shoulders; the garment had been stitched for a man and fit poorly, a deep crimson with sleeves too tall for its owner, but this did not seem to concern young Messere Hawke. There were coffee stains on the cuffs. Rich felt looked odd in contention with worn leggings and slouching brown boots, yet such slapdash nobility was a familiar sight since they had relocated to Amell Manor, and Leandra began to demand public propriety. She was paler, haler, better-fed – all symptoms of a class bump. Much stranger was the woman's dark hair, now washed and combed in pretense that seemed awkward. He was far more used to seeing her stomp about in boy's trousers with a head of scraggly, badly-cut brown. "Interrupting?"

Anders shoved the bowl aside. Bony hands shook out the front of his coat in case of cereal flecks. "No, no. Come in."

Her palm slipped off the flaking support beam, and it was a relief how those nails were still a little dirty despite their broad silver signet ring.

"I was just eating breakfast. There's actually no one here at the moment," he announced. "Miracle, that."

"Yes, I can see."

Like Justice, Anders wouldn't claim to dislike Cala Hawke – was glad to know her, for practical and amiable reasons – but there was always this uncomfortable feeling biting beneath his skin that speaking to her for prolonged periods of time inevitably led to the sort of adventures scrawny, prudent, good-looking spell-casters just didn't want.

Since the blatantly obvious had already been stated, he glanced around his clinic, arms crossing in muted sun and dust-motes. It was a bit too bright. Pelicans were bickering down by the turquoise bay, gulping shrimp and herring off sailboat decks. "Are you ill, then? Seems there's a rose fever going around. Hell, I got it," the apostate snorted, gesturing towards the cluttered mess of beakers, mortars, and chlorophyll stains that was his workshop counter. He'd had to brew potions with one hand and use the other to cover his dripping nose. Never a very good omen when the doctor was coughing more than his patients, but such was the life of a healer; you managed to catch every infectious bug that zipped its way through the local children. Nurseries and schoolyards churned disease in the finest towns – theirs were held in alleyways littered with garbage, toxic mold and fish guts. It meant dropping your needle mid-stitch to sneeze, holding your breath around new mothers, and swigging your own brews. Necessary, of course… but most inconvenient.

"_That is certainly true. Especially so for those awful, itching red things. What is that silly name you call them by, again?"_

'_Chicken pox, Justice. Chicken pox.'_

"_Yes. Well. Whatever foolish things you mortals dub your diseases, they were infernal."_

Anders internally rolled his eyes. The angry, cherry-colored pocks had since disappeared from his gamey shoulder blades and ankles, but this conversation was rapidly bringing back a tingling need to scratch. _'You could always go back to possessing stinking, fly-eaten corpses if this body's too _uncomfortable _for your delicate spirit sensibilities, you know….' _Success – Justice bristled into silence. _'That's right, you. Back to your cave.'_

Cala shook her head, glancing past him. She folded both arms; the woman's face was clean, but her mother couldn't smooth out its harsh, militant angles of sharp chin and frowning brow. She had powerful legs punctuated by bruised, stocky knees. That ring was too big for her thumb and the girl had to keep balling fists to keep it on. "I just came by to look in on you. The clinic's in much better shape these days."

It was good to see Hawke, all things considered. She was a fairly scarce figure in plebian Kirkwall lately, balancing out templar concerns with newfound political clout. The seneschal's office had not yet restored their full emblems, he understood, but paperwork was well on its way; couriers darted to that household frequently with government-stamped missives. Until then, the family had to act cautiously in their high-born neighbors' critical eye. Leandra was very clear about this. No slip-ups would be tolerated. Merchants Guild contacts were extremely beneficial during the crucial 'feet-wetting' phase of becoming nobility, and Varric heaped on compliments; Gamlen had been prohibited from Lusine's place; Captain Vallen never ordered searches where they might jeopardize them. Yet it was no guarantee of safety. Support from the viscount's hall did deter inquiring mage-hunters, true, and this woman was very discreet about her abilities… but it was difficult not fretting for one's fellow apostates beneath the trident crown of Meredith Stannard.

All this scrutiny made life no easier for a new young Hightown messere. They would run into each other around the bazaar occasionally, she and Anders. Tidings were exchanged now and then. There was a short letter he wrote inquiring about a certain Circle relation – a note answered with a knock at his door, a shrug, and the explanation she hadn't had time to sit down and pen something back in code. No one remembered any mage-children from Markham. Just as well, really. There was nothing of Reema Amell in Cala Hawke.

That was all right, though. Anders wasn't sure this woman would be his first choice for drinking-buddy – and had none of the 'positive work' Leandra suggested – but he still counted her as a friend. It was never wise to waste friends in this city… particularly not those with social power, and doubly so when so-called maleficar went swinging from Gallows ropes at every sunrise, necks snapping to the clang of the great Chantry bell.

"Still a warehouse, but yes, I did make some improvements. Turns out that Deep Roads venture wasn't a complete swing-and-miss. Or… it bought me windows, at least." He jerked a thumb proudly to the new glass, died with Waking Sea salt crystals that filtered sunlight. The inventory Anders gave was quick and informal, but it was also rather proud. "Finally got that wall redone. It was rotting pretty badly, if you remember. Asked them to push it out a little for me – make more room. And on top of that, I had all the beds bunked; ague season'll be here soon enough, I figure, and I'm sick of jumping over people sleeping on my floor." Two rows of cots had been slid neatly against the hospital side, mattresses stacked into three-story shelves. Towels hung from ceiling racks made suitable privacy curtains – but in this echoing, empty room that smelled of aspen shavings, they had all been tied and tucked away. Cala took a content, mildly interested stock of these changes. "Mhm. Put a few screens in, too. New cabinets; better locks. Can actually make and store my medicine ahead of time without worrying someone might steal it now. Which means I think Lady Elegant up in the market's about to sick assassins on me, but you can't please everyone, can you?"

"I imagine!" She jerked her head forward in a good-natured nod. "At any rate. I wanted to thank you for pitching in the other week. Hard to believe we could've fit that much junk into Gamlen's closets. Aveline and I wouldn'tve been thrilled to haul it all across Hightown ourselves."

"There _are_ an awful lot of stairs in that house, aren't there."

Hawke snorted. "Yes. And, of course, Mother and Uncle were no help whatsoever." There was, notably, no mention of "Brother"; and there had been no sign of his aid when the newly-restored Amells moved back into their estate. The apostate assumed they had not spoken or seen one another since Carver resigned from his family over three months ago. No doubt that cretinous boy would've been more help than a lanky mage… seeing as how one couldn't exactly wiggle their sparkly fingers to float crates across the City of Chains, and Anders never was one for heavy lifting. Oh, well. Three sets of hands were better than none. (He still leant on Justice a little when it came to transporting boxed armor and pot sets, though – only a _little_, mind you – so as not to completely embarrass himself. Captain Vallen was a crate-toting monster, but ultimately,_ 'Wouldn't look very strapping to be tragically out-hefted by two women in the height of noon…')_

"_I _have_ advised you to put more effort into developing your physical strength."_

'_Why don't you pike it, Tinny? Why don't you pike it right up your big, metal-'_

Something bumped into his calf. Black, greasy fur wrapped itself around Anders's shin – a rare, shamelessly self-centered token of affection – and he gently scooted Mimsy away with a boot. She gave one hideous, raspy meow before swaggering off. (He could have sworn that queen had been a smoker half her life.) The bitten-off stump of tail moved as though it wanted to swish.

Oh, Pounce had been much cuter – this creature was no noble, knighted beast; she shunned most affection save chin-scratching, and slept on the mage's feet rather than his yellow hair – but one could do worse for companionship. He was very glad to have a pet again, even this gristly scullery maid among cats. Kirkwall got lonely. When you lived in canvas corridors crammed elbow-to-elbow with downtrodden people, there were times where a man just needed something whiskered and fuzzy.

She never talked back, either, which was a little blessing all on its own.

"Haven't seen any more of that elf, have you?" Cala asked, squinting an eye.

"Well, that depends. Are you referring to Merrill, or the other basket case who tried to roost in my clinic? Because if it's the first one – see that broken ladle? Right there? 'Round all the empty spots where bottles used to be? – _Merrill_."

The woman made an attempt at chuckling, but it wasn't very convincing. Hawke might have risen in the elite world of Kirkwall due to grit and smart business choices, but her sense of humor was still stale as week-old cake. "I'm not referring to Merrill, of course. You'd need attack dogs to keep that girl from rooting around, and I know how you feel about dogs." Her lips tightened the scar. "In all seriousness, though. If you're still having security concerns, I can place an order to the Red-"

Anders winced, waving the suggestion off. He could imagine how a squad of sword-toting ruffians with overly large jaws looming around his hospital might go. "Let's not. Darktown's Darktown, but I think a bunch of sneering door guards might scare people off. Besides, I'd rather tangle with the occasional looter than a templar contingent. Mercenaries draw too much attention for my tastes. Present company excluded," he added when Hawke began to look a bit crestfallen.

She shrugged. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me."

There was an awkward pause in which Anders waited for her to leave, but Cala didn't quite make it. The woman stood around with tightly folded hands that kept her oversized Amell ring in its place. The apostate, meanwhile, cast an uncomfortable glance towards his breakfast – it was growing even colder as they spoke – and flavorless as low-quality, syrupy oatmeal was, he really wanted to finish it. Hawke was frowning intelligently at a blood spot on the floor.

"Well, if there's-"

"I'm heading out into Sundermount tomorrow and I was wondering if you wanted to come along," she blurted, still scowling away at that poor, innocent stain. (It looked like the leftovers from an Alienage widow's – _'What was her name? Nissa? Nyssa?' _– fractured leg, poor thing.)

Anders was… cautious.

"Me? Sundermount? Why?"

Cala's already hard look hardened a few more creases' worth. She stamped an idle heel into the floorboard, and dust rose up from beneath. "This is… uncomfortable for me," the girl admitted. A vicious blink seemed to strengthen her pride. That stern, refined voice had lost some of its wintry Fereldan consonants and began to mumble a bit. "It's something I regret, and I'm not happy about having to do it. So I would appreciate it if you didn't tell Mother. But." Wincing, maple eyes glanced up to gauge the healer's reaction; the grandiose, comical way he crossed his heart in Chantry fashion seemed to encourage her. Hawke breathed out forcefully through her nose. "When we were preparing for the Deep Roads excursion, Bartrand demanded an investment from all his partners. It was not a small investment. A large chunk of what I eventually paid him came from Master Dougal – he's a Coterie moneylender – and…"

"I'm beginning to see the problem."

"No," she cut in, almost a squawk. "Let me… just let me tell my tale. While I wouldn't invite Dougal into my home, the man is a reasonable sort for what he is. But wherever the Coterie is involved, one is never well-advised to let their debts fester for long. So I didn't. I paid him. As soon as the revenue started flowing from Worthy, I sent in chunks of what I owed." Another short, fortified breath; her tongue ran grimly over her front teeth. Her mane was a dark shock of cyprus wood behind tense shoulders. The look of frustration returned, and it wore a coat very similar to pain. "You must understand: I couldn't have my family in that shack any longer. Mother is so weak of constitution, and with the Gallows as it stands… our money didn't come fast enough. I wasn't about to wait another year," she swore, stubborn, as though there was something afoul to prove. "I took out another loan. For the house. And-"

"Watch the wet paint-!" But it was too late; Cala flattened her right hand smack on damp white beam. It left a star-pronged print on Anders's wall.

"Damn it!" the woman cussed, looked at her glistening palm, and – before thinking better – reflexively swiped it off in her tunic train. Hawke realized what she'd done too late. There were now five fingers stamped right over Hawke's bum. "Wha… _damn it_!"

Anders didn't even try not to laugh. Hightown's newest noble was currently twisting 'round to look at the damage, swearing, jacket ruined. Paint dried to powder on her skin. Anger made that stern voice sound Fereldan again, barb-sharp and mountainous, brows furrowed as though someone else had been responsible.

"Now _that_ is grace fit for a fine-" But he wasn't able to comment before she shut any traces of merriment down with a severe look. The healer demurely cleared his throat. "So you're having interest trouble this time around, is that-"

"I didn't take it from Dougal. He wouldn't again. Not while the first deal's pending closure."

"Then who?" the mage wondered, hearing soft footprints approach from behind and hop onto his desk top. A few manifesto notes (that had somewhere along the line degenerated into ungracious scribbles of Meredith being beheaded by a lion-sized Ser Pounce-a-Lot) fluttered off. Mimsy sniffed about with a scabby nose.

His answer was a mutter as she dusted herself one final time. "I… asked my old employer," Cala confessed, contrite, kicking a pebble across the clinic. "A man named Meeran. Of the Red Iron."

No – Leandra wasn't going to like this _at all_.

'_And suddenly the fat-cat's out of the bag…'_ Anders scratched a few fingers through his scalp and sighed, ignoring the way it ruffled his ponytail. _This_ was precisely why he never rushed into warming up with mercenaries. To. _To_ mercenaries. "Let me guess: now that you've got a foothold in this city, Upstanding Boss-Man wants payout in triplicate."

"In a sense. And since he knows about… me," she decided, unable to connect the word 'magic' to herself, "I can't very well refuse."

They stared in deadlock a moment, not sure what the other expected.

"It's not money he wants," Hawke continued, rubbing her jaw with a small, rough palm. The ring twisted, its aggressive V-arcs pinched between two fingers. "Bastard can get sovereigns off anyone for delivering corpses. He's looking for more time out of me. There are practical benefits to owning the loyalties of-" Falter. "You know why they'd be interested in keeping me tied."

An unfortunate fate for many mages – even untalented, untrained ones like her: evade capture, and face a life of blackmail; worse, illicit professions often led straight into Circle shackles. "Are you going to do it? Can't Aveline help? Or Varric? He's certainly got enough-"

Cala shook her head, chuffing, grim. "The Red Iron would swallow the Watch whole. And I'm not bringing Varric's purse strings into this. These problems are my own." She swallowed. "One assignment – that's all we've negotiated. It won't be particularly easy. But it has to be done. Then we can get back to our lives as they ought to be. I will not be intimidated back into a slum," the girl swore, an obstinate oath showing her canines. "I don't care where I live, mage. This city rots just as well in Hightown as it does in Old City where I am concerned. But if they take the estate away again, it will kill my mother."

Here is what she explained: their guild had recently been contacted by a very wealthy independent contractor – some third-rate Marcher infanta, or something – to eliminate a mercenary band who'd stepped on some royal toes. The Red Iron had never looked fondly upon any potential rivals, whatever their name; more than that, however, they loved coin. Garrett Meeran quickly sent forces to scatter Flint Company from Kirkwall. Men had been ripped from their whores' bellies and cut dead inside the Blooming Rose; others were sniffed down in Lowtown gutters, then dumped into the sea; a few unlucky sods were nailed face-up to their cushy bedposts. _"Standard treatment," _Hawke said with a stiff, resentful jaw. Then, when these bloody first steps were complete and those tactless assassins were dashing ass-over-end into the wilderness, it was apparently time to call in dues. He sent a very strongly-worded message (in the form of two thugs all but hammering the front door off its hinges) to Amell Manor two nights ago. Evidently, a scout had spotted the harangued Company camp, somewhere roundabout where Dalish patrols roamed… securing payment and local dominance was now only a matter of charging in to slit throats.

And he wanted Cala to do the slitting.

"I'm leading three men. Don't know anything about them," the woman went on, crossing both arms over her chest, soles parked at shoulder-width. It was Hawke's default stance. "I can see why Meeran might want me in on this one. Word has it they've got a hedge witch with them. But I'm less concerned about the Flints as I am… other possibilities."

"_You are being lied to,"_ Justice chimed in, just as pointed and matter-of-fact as a low-court magistrate.

The mage wasn't sure if this was because the Fereldan currently before him wore such a mangled look on her face or because his powers of perception felt insulted – but he took a little offense. _'You're mad. She wouldn't lie about this.'_

"_Then she is not being fully honest with you."_

'_What's this, all of a sudden? I thought you liked her,'_ the abomination's human-half remarked, studying his proverbial nails. _'Thought you said she was… how did it go, again? _'Cut from sterner stuff than you callow, swaddled Tower-mages?' _Quite a compliment from you. Almost began to worry you were developing a wee little crush, for a minute there-'_

"_Why on _earth_ would I want to crush the woman?" _the spirit squawked, bewildered.

'_Oh, don't be so hasty. Sometimes women enjoy a good crushing.'_

Anders left the narrow-eyed warrior to puzzle out any inappropriate meanings in that last statement. He didn't realize he was chewing on his bottom lip. "Do you expect the Iron would turn on you?"

"Would they? In a heartbeat. Will they? I don't know," she confided, and gave a great, worrisome sigh. "I don't think they're pressed enough to turn a potential tool in for a copper piece. But Meeran hired me knowing full well what I was. If he ever needed a bargaining chip to appease the Knight-Commander…" The dark prospect was shaken off before it could visibly affect her. Cala_ 'hmn'_ed. She patted the sword holster belted to her left thigh. "I don't plan on dying. I'd rather think of it as a nice week's end in the mountainside. Should only take but a day – two at most – and I know you hike up there looking for components every once and a while. Wouldn't ask you to dirty your hands with Red Iron business personally, mage, but I wondered if maybe a short side-trip might not be out of your way. And, well. It'd be a safe path up there, if you were interested in setting off with us."

"_Stop where you are! I insist you find out what the purpose of this so-called assignment is!" _Justice shouted. Such a sudden, thundering return made the poor apostate jump in his knickers. Anders's heart thrummed wildly in its cavity, rattling the man's ribs. His pulse surged. _"If you promise us away to a mercenary campaign with no clear motive and no foundation, I will never forgive you."_

The demand – the threat and the pout, too – was all too plain. He frowned. He felt like sticking a finger in one ear canal and twisting the sound out, but knew there was no knocking these insufferable, pompous diatribes from his head. Instead of bitching, Anders sighed. He relented. "Can you tell me what the contract is about, do you think?"

Hawke gave a brief account of the overthrown Starkhaven line – butchered to its last toothless babe – leaving one estranged heir with inheritance promises and grief that eclipsed his goodly soul. The Fade knight listened raptly. When Cala had finished Prince Vael's tragedy, he offered a curt, approving cough.

"_Ah. Then she intends to punish murderers. This is acceptable."_

'_I suppose,' _the man returned. _'But don't give her too much credit. It's not as though she volunteered, or anything.'_

"_True, and this diminishes her valor. But it does not dilute the cause,"_ he affirmed, beliefs deep and steel-clad; this creature was truth and hard-won freedom lent a voice. It made the mage's neck hairs bristle on their ends. He felt as though they were inside that helmet together – with its winged crown, reflective face, dark slit for eyes. The spirit reverberated._ "Vengeance plied in such a way is just. And aiding one in doing so leaves us with no transgressions."_

'_Wait. 'Us?' When in heaven or hell did 'us' come into this picture?'_

Justice was silent, but Anders felt some-sharp-something buried within give a distinct, adamant _shove_ forward.

Righteousness alone might've been sufficient for an ethereal crusader who spouted liberty cries and stomped around like some giant clanking ninny, but the healer was dubious. He pursed. He squirmed beneath forceful, upright pushes from his parasite – and more so, didn't like the vagueness of what her little invitation truly meant. "And this involves me… how, per se? I'm welcome come along for the ride, but you aren't... asking for my help? You know…" The apostate splayed his fingers, long and darkened with perpetual dirt. He gave a weak, unenthused _"bang!"_

Hawke held up both palms, flat and worn. "I didn't say that. If you're willing to come the full way, I wouldn't refuse your aid. A doctor is always useful. Especially on ventures like this." _There_ – a nervous, telling expression – bleak, unhappy bashfulness that was nothing close to endearing. Cala shifted in her coat like a hooked water snake, tongue stuck on the fishing line. This is what she aimed for. "If you're not able, I understand. But should the worst come to pass – if I don't return in a few days – I want someone to know. And I'd… I'd appreciate it if you'd tell my moth-"

"_Anders,"_ Justice said – so grave and verge-disappointed, it was like standing in First Enchanter Irving's chamber after dumping a full bowl of pasta over Cullen's head.

'_Oh, for crying out…'_

"Save it, save it," the mage groused, furrowing, puffing out a bothered sign of his own. He cursed and groaned. He scrubbed at his stubble and dented forehead, mussing up the locks there. Something horridly annoying was throbbing away right between the inner corners of shut amber eyes. The something started twitching. _Perfect_. _Just lovely._ "Don't start waxing all… doom, gloom, 'give my last words to poor Mother.' You made your point. I'll come. Sod it. Sure, I'll tag along – why the hell not?"

He made no attempt to hide the harassed, hostile edge. Hawke stared guardedly at him. "Are you…?"

"Yes, fine! I'm sure," the abomination snapped, though it probably didn't seem much like it. There was a frazzled quality to him at present that must've appeared bizarre to those unaware of the dual-conscious tearing up this man's head – which was to say it would've looked batty to everyone. His oatmeal was no doubt soggy a sea sponge by now. "What kind of spineless, shivering exile do you think I am? There's no sense in you galloping out into Sundermount and getting yourself roped up or killed. Although! It is nice that you seem to think I'm capable of turning an ambush around on a bunch of trained killers more than some snooty guardsmen. Is Merrill-"

"Merrill has enough problems."

Now _that_ was a true statement

Hawke looked to the ground again. She shrugged. "I didn't tell anyone else. I need someone I can trust. If you're certain, I'm grateful."

"_I am likewise pleased to see you are capable of making some good decisions without my direct intervention, mortal."_

"I'll bet you are," Anders mumbled – and were it not for the odd look on Cala's face, would never have known he'd uttered it aloud. "But, honestly – next time you need something from me, you ought to just come out and ask for it. Would have saved us a lot of footseying around, weird silences and guilty blushing." (And a few debate matches going on behind the doctor's increasingly irritated face.) "Not that the guilty blushing doesn't have a certain charm, but…"

The Fereldan's face bled that trademark, plaster-paste of ashamed. She stuck an apologetic boot toe into a knothole. "Sorry. I thought it might seem like I was trying to call in a debt, I suppose. Didn't want you to feel goaded into anything dangerous."

'_Were it only that all of us could be so courteous – EH, TIN-HEAD?' _No answer from within but a harrumph. Yet beyond these urges to heckle Justice, it was disturbing, Anders thought… how little Hawke knew about the real colors of his character. That this woman perceived a sense of honor – believed in his integrity and commitment – was a strange thing, and her respect made it all the more clear how disastrous divulging anything about the stark, inglorious course of his life would be. Kirkwall was unique not in its slavery, but in that its tall fences distorted even the most unabashed weakness; they made refugees into aristocrats, knights into dictators, and nameless cowards look like noble men.

Her freely-given trust was humbling – it made his stomach hurt in the way of telling a lie.

"Let me just get a few things sorted out in here and I'll meet you at _The Hanged Man _'round lunchtime. We'll talk about it."

He walked back to the desk and waved Mimsy off his breakfast, grain stuck to her whiskers – opportunist bitch. She yowled and plopped onto the ground. Without thinking, giving up entirely on his submerged spoon, Anders picked up the bowl and drained it.

Cala was still standing in the doorway, but her clumsiness had dissolved – she now stared at him with a frank, strangled grimace. "That's foul, mage."

"No, it isn't," he shot back. "I bet she's cleaner than you are."

Rolling her disgust away, shoulders heavy, Hawke exhaled. She managed a smile. "Thank you, Anders."

"_Sure_. What are friends for if not getting you killed?"

He said it aloud, because in matters of debts and violence, Justice and Cala were two sides of the same tin-plate coin.

When she left – also leaving a great deal of anxious restlessness – he straightened his workspace, replaced the bottles Merrill broke, and swept the clinic's floor. He gathered the loose parchment and mopped up any lingering ink stains. But he never quite got around to painting over that handprint. Anders would happen to glance at it every now and then, a spot of naked wood in the nice varnish, and cuss; he'd make mental notes to buy paint and patch it up tomorrow, when he had the time. But tomorrow came and came again, and there it was: a little imperfection stamped in the background, one that bothered him, but one that always escaped being washed out.

It would sit there for the next three years.

**II.**

Prince Sebastian – third son of the late Starkhaven Vaels – wielded a mean shot, an eagle-eye, gilt armor and a sense of morality stiffer than Hawke's god-damned iron pike. The man exuded reason, faith and authority. He never slouched. He gazed far ahead with posture straight and chin cleft up, bow braced against his thigh, one heel cocked like a dandy yeoman. Between clear Marcher-speech and the slightly off-set bite, there was no trace of foul intention to sully this chap's air. There were no slurs or nefarious grins or a single speck of dirt on that convex royal nose of his. He wielded patience and red-tail fletching. Most of all, though – he wielded two large, fawnish, ocean-blue eyes.

Anders, all these things considered, was perhaps doomed to hate Sebastian Vael.

And what would've made for a finer introduction to the stately brat but a rescue? Or, more precisely, _this_: one battered healer sitting up, coated in salt and forest gravel, to take stock of a single arrow throbbing in some blood mage bitch's head.

But as Varric often said: one needed the _whole_ story to sympathize properly with a moody dueteragonist – _"even one as charming, blond and lamentable as you."_

The Whole Story wasn't much in the way of bona fide thrills, actually, despite the nervous commitment made to it yesterday over meandering negotiations and waterlogged oatmeal. To be honest, their regicide hunt was rather short-lived and unspectacular. But what more could you expect of an arse-beaten Kirkwall sell-sword guild? The minds behind Flint Company were no Architects or Baroness or Warden-Commander; they delivered what most desperate, walloped men did with trousers-at-ankles and knives at their throats. They died. The majority of them died quite nicely, matter-of-fact, and had the courtesy to do so without alerting Dalish warriors or dealing out any permanent wounds.

It's not as though they were all incompetent sots, though. (You didn't get that lucky anywhere outside of Redcliffe, proud bastion of Incompetent Sots who Ought to Tie their Boats Tighter Lest They be Stolen by Renegade Magi. Thrice.) These ousted mercenaries were spastic, poorly-fed, but _incredibly_ resilient, or so a certain abomination learned – with boots sinking into mire, grass stains greening the yellow pleats of his robe, fingernails broken into red.

Things had started well enough when this battle began. They'd ridden horseback for seven or eight hours out of Kirkwall, winding towards the knolls at Sundermount's feet; he and this rugged trio of men assigned to Hawke had little enough to talk about. No complaints, however; silence was a pleasant shift from claustrophobic Darktown, allowing the breadth of woodland to suffocate what discomfort lingered, and contract ruffians were rarely decorated conversationalists. Sand gradually became saplings – became trees – became temperate chaparral, buzzing with gnats. Horse hooves plodded through dew-slick moss in the fragile dawn light. Withers, branded with Red Iron insignia, bristled; saddles creaked for need of oil. Cala was somber and alert atop a gelding bay two shades lighter than her short knot of hair. Garrett Meeran's gruff, unremarkable lackeys murmured quietly amongst themselves. Anders found that fragrant cedar and whippoorwills kept putting him to sleep astride the amiable pinto he'd been given – and would sag forward, neck sore – only to lurch awake moments later, spitting, spider webs sticking to his face. The mare would alternate between sniffing out fallen persimmons and muzzling his boot laces. Elfroot bottles clanked in rucksacks on either side.

It was perhaps eleven o'clock when fire smoke rose beyond the spread of conifers. They fell upon that ramshackle camp with brutal efficiency; Hawke's spearhead smoldered, Iron blades swung sharp, and the apostate rained flame upon tent flaps that burned healthily in this low clearing breeze. They had not been expecting an ambush. There were only eight of them, and each sputtered to their unmourned death quicker than the disagreeable burn of Firestorm drained from his hands.

Sure enough, though – because there was _always_ a stumbling block – one wispy elf-girl leapt from her coffee cauldron with blood pouring from both elbows.

Cala, spike stuck in a set of lungs, had just grabbed the face of a final Companyman who'd charged from behind. Her hand smoked orange. He howled when it registered, cheekbones cooking; she wouldn't let go. His dagger slanted uselessly off the scale-mail protecting Hawke's stomach, panicked. She clenched tighter. Steam rose. The man's left eye glued shut beneath her thumb. She released her spear just long enough to pull a short knife from its belt sheath and sink diagonally into his neck.

Maybe it was the sizzle of roasted human that kept her from hearing Anders scream "MAGE, MAGE!" – but his sloppy Paralyze failed roundabout the same time Cala looked up.

She broke the studs off Hawke's steel breastplate, sending her hurtling over a boulder with one well-placed Stonefist, and opened a Hemorrhage vortex beneath their two surviving legionnaires' feet. There was no opportunity to think. There was only enough time to shoot a single, lame bolt of staff energy, fumbling for his last blue potion. Anders had to make a choice.

He chose Hawke, obviously. _'What kind of question was that?'_

She had disappeared behind a stack of rocks before anyone could react. Her weapon was left wedged between a corpse's ribs, two small, sweaty palmprints pressed into cloth. Anders snagged it with his free hand when he leapt past. Return blasts weren't high on the doctor's list of concerns, at the moment… more prominent was this smoggy, charcoal lyrium scent fizzling air. He dove from the magic whirlpool that yawned open only precious yards away – whirling scarlet; picking up pebbles, soil, clover, all torn into a dust-devil haze – and darted for where Cala had fallen. Adrenaline prickled down the abomination's neck. Their backup died loudly, life sieved away to leave withered, bloodless bodies. _'No need to look.'_

He ran quickly. _Speed_ was the best thing templar observance had ever inspired in Anders.

Organs erupted behind him, a horrible succession of ripe-sounding _squish!_es, but the mage couldn't very well stop. There was little point in a double-take, anyway; he'd heard that telltale noise enough slogging through the Fade crypts of Blackmarsh. Mares screamed inhumanly. Tents kept crackling. Justice flared anger that did not overpower a spirit's fears for their host. _"She will PAY for this desecration, as will all others of her vein,"_ an ethereal voice roared somewhere behind his heart._ "Weak, evil-breeding wretch! I will have her head for these atrocities!"_

(Old Boy thundered something fierce whenever they stumbled across blood mages – personal fear complicating his hatred – and it was hard to disagree. Anders wasn't shaking in his robes or anything, though. After a small goddamned adventure novel spent in the Deep Roads, this former Warden didn't start trembling over some lone knife-eared wench who fancied cutting herself and got all hot-and-bothered over demons. _'Sorry, Merrill. No offense.'_)

Hawke had been knocked belly-up onto a hard patch of earth. She was grabbing her chest, huffing for air that wouldn't come, stomach muscles crunching. Her face was an ill blue.

He kneeled, thumped the halberd down, and ducked to scan for injuries. Most weren't apparent. Stonefist's impact had popped out six nails that bound Cala's armor slats together, cracking a few and shivering others off; two belt buckles keeping everything snug had burst at her side. It was heavy exterior damage, but made the task of sliding his hands between leather-and-stomach much easier. A wash of Panacea turned the chain bits on her shirt frosty and fixed two ribs. She was still choking too much to offer gratitude, though.

Anders crouched behind her, took a handful of red cape, maneuvered Cala halfway into an arm to open her airway, and provided healing in the form of one good slap to the face.

That was the only time Anders would ever intentionally hit Cala Hawke, but it did have the desired effect. Panicked seizing settled into a sort of bland shock, hovered for a few moments, and gave way to gusty breath as her chest remembered how it ought to breathe. She coughed. She shoved herself away and onto hands-and-knees. She groped numbly for her spear.

Tingly, ice-fingers healing and medicinal salves were all well-and-good, but occasionally more immediate remedies were preferable. _'There came certain times when you just needed to double someone over and bang it out of them, you know?'_

"_Truly, Anders?" _A rare moment when the double-entendre was not lost upon Justice.

But recovery meant his job was only partway complete. So, with few other options from behind this slab of granite, they picked up their staffs – or whatever it was Hawke wanted to call her barbed weapon of choice – and they battled it out.

The Flint Company's resident hedge witch was stringy, hardly a woman – but damned if she didn't compensate with for moral defects with doggedness. What felt like a half-hour passed… crouched like that in a damp, rocky plain and hoping for enemy spells to abate. Anders fired electricity until his fringes stood on end and smelled like the aftermath of a bonfire. It did not stick. He could singe her severely, leaning upon his spirit for fast spell rebound, but nothing replaced a healer's mana save honest rest; meanwhile, maleficars siphoned energy from dead men with black rituals. Their horses were floored. Life force funneled through wheezing snouts and into the elf's fingers, toes, mouth. They snorted themselves quiet with crushed hearts. There was no time to feel badly about it. Killing stopped up her bleeding, no matter the source.

Cala – whose magic was lackluster and bound to the reach of a short body – could do little beyond swearing and trying to stick her plates back together with spit. She scowled by Anders's shin for quite some time, hunkered against their boulder-shield, rendered impotent in a way that was starkly foreign to her. The healer didn't exactly play leading hero very often, either, and it was a bizarre role. He flittered back and forth between lunging down and channeling lightning sparks. Justice was melodramatic about any combat, but his warnings to take cover were always right-on-time.

Yet Hawke was not a creature of cowering and secondary fiddles. It made her teeth grind to wait, powerless, watching someone else exchange blows; it made her more uncomfortable than the notion of behaving honorably had the craven Fereldan runaway.

"_Fuck_ this," she finally spat, having endured enough, and scrambled forward to try her hand at outright stabbing the bitch. Boots scrambled. The ex-Warden readied another wave of healing with what dwindling power reserves he had, feeling lightheaded. Justice sent a welcome bolt of Fade power to keep his host upright. But it was all moot.

Anders had just absorbed a mean shock that left his ears leaking wax and his bum in the clay when a shaft deftly cut through thin Sundermountain air.

It hit that malicious tramp right in the pale stretch of her forehead.

Enter Sebastian Vael.

He had expected another half-assed, floundering fight when the Chantry archer came bounding into view: weapon drawn, bowstring humming, quiver at-the-ready. It was not because of the narrow, scrutinizing stare or tense jaw. It was not because of way sunlight, subdued through early afternoon mist, made those onyx arrowheads shine. It was simply that blokes who danced around the wilderness with Andraste's face smoldered on their codpiece were generally not mage-friendly types, in Anders's experience (at least not to rogue mages); they were templars or priestess-guards or something in between. It was far better to avoid them. Unfortunately – when a parched battle outside Kirkwall left you drained of magics; sprawled out in the squishy, ashy mud; knee twisted; blundering henchmen dead and Cala Hawke all but holding her filleted cuirass shingles onto her chest – you were sort of at a disadvantage. _'At their mercy, in fact.'_ And Maker knew His blesséd children came up a little short in the mercy department.

So you can imagine a wounded apostate's surprise… when some red-haired Justinia disciple lowered his bow, trotted over, took both sides of Anders's collar in his hands and hefted the exhausted healer upright. He squirmed. He winced, waiting for the inevitable knuckle-to-the-eye.

But it didn't come. Instead, the stranger set him down. He gave those feathery pauldrons a straightening tug. He offered a friendly pat to the blond's shoulder – perhaps noting his dazed, flabbergasted, dirt-encrusted expression. And, Divine preserve him, the altar-boy even leant over to briskly dust off this speechless mage's damned dirty pant knees.

"My. That was a close one, then, wasn't it!" he chuckled, turned to Hawke, and dealt Anders a manly swat-to-the-back that made him choke.

And so it was decided then-and-there, standing dumbly in a glade with wobbling tendons and a sudden intense humility. Anders didn't know this man's name. Anders didn't know where in the hells this man had come from. But Anders did know, with both these important bits of knowledge dashed to the wind, he rather wanted to light this man's nicely-combed head on fire.

Cala shuffled over to the healer with all her practical, suspicious tact. She did not start bellowing or threatening this newcomer. She did not yell. She remained firm and blinked at him with enemy gore cooling on her calves and forearms, sweaty tufts wafting about, stare a perplexed butterscotch brown. She clutched her pike and stood loyally next to the Darktown doctor while his ears rang dully.

"Who in the hell," Hawke said, crisp and polite as she could manage in their present situation, "are you?"

Oh, Sebastian never wronged Anders in any particular way – it's just that he reminded him overwhelmingly of Ser Bartholomew, who would park both hands on his hips and lord over Kinloch Hold's apprentices with that same purified, puffed-up, care-giving grin. There was little question in the apostate's mind. This was _just_ like stumbling into old Bart while you were trying to do even the teensiest, most harmless-est, self-interested magical something outside of a templar's supervision. The only difference was age and location. Bartholomew's doppelganger, Vael smelled magi independence and pranced in… all glittery white-gold with that stupid bow of his, springing over Sundermountain grass, nickering sage advice like a spoiled sorrel colt.

He was handsome, too, the bastard.

"Pardon me, my friends. I didn't mean to sneak up on you. T'was only just now I saw the trouble you were in, and wasn't about to stand idly by whilst my aim was needed." A gloved hand settled diplomatically upon his chestplate, which was tossing rays in their eyes like an unsheathed blade. He sounded genuine enough in his apology, Anders supposed, but all kindliness was overshadowed by the terrible hill-folk roll to his 'r's. It was horrifying. That accent would've grown hair on an elf lady's chest. "I'm sorry about your men. Were it only that I could've been here sooner, but my start was late, and these trees block my shots."

"We, uhm… appreciate it," Cala answered, glancing nervously towards Anders, who was apparently still trying to process the fact he'd just been dusted. "But you must have us confused with a different party. We aren't hunters or a caravan. This is a Red Iron Guild operation. These dead-"

But the indiscreet, sunny-faced traveler – who really wasn't indiscreet at all, actually, or a traveler – held up his hand to shush her. Embers still burned the tents behind them. "Aye, ma'am, I know. Say no more, Messere Amell and… Master Anders, isn't it?" It was hard to tell who skittered more at the mention of their names. "Don't look so surprised! Didn't exactly expect to run into both of you out here – particularly you, serrah – but I know all about the Red Iron's business with Flint Company. In fact, I was the one who commissioned it."

Hawke's confusion grew needleheads. "You'd better explain…"

He did. "I'm afraid there's not a whole terrible lot to it beyond what was listed in my formal request. You Wallers move fast. 'Was more than a bit shocked when Garrett Meeran contacted me yestereve, said the task was nearly done… I do commend your efforts for justice, by the way; your boys made short work of these Blighted wretches in Kirkwall. But when he told me about this morning's raid, and I heard there might be maleficar involved, well… it became my duty to follow up. I had to be sure someone put the poor, twisted monster out of its misery as Andraste demands. And here I am." A thumb jerked towards that blood mage's corpse, still ebbing brain fluid, clear slipperiness rolling down the delicate bridge of her nose. "And it looks like there's one more sinner lining up for judgment as we speak. So I daresay my job is done."

The archer smiled.

Sebastian cock-_sucking_ Vael.

**-oOo-**

_Anders smiled across the table, gingerly plucked a pea from his plate, then – with great marksmanship – twisted around and shot it straight off the back of young Ser Cullen's head._

It was the third time this had happened tonight in Kinloch Hold's first-floor dining hall; for the _third_ time, that springy-maned templar grabbed at his neck and spun around, pauldrons bristling, eyes alone apt to light magi robes aflame. He glared wildly at the two closest apprentice tables, searching for perpetrators that did not announce themselves. At _his_ bench, meanwhile, there was a curious bristle among fellow recruits as they inquired – once again – what the matter was.

"Honestly, Ronald – what's gotten into you this evening? You're jumpier than an addled squirrel," said the pretty brunette at his left, cocking her chin. This question made him (if possible) flush an even deeper shade of scarlet. It bled to the roots of a fifteen-year-old hairline, full and close-cut.

"Nothing. It's nothing," he barked. "Could have sworn…" One mitt rubbed the spot where dishwater curls met leather bevor. "Damned mages. It's nothing."

With a final, warning glower cast around their hall, Ronald settled back to eat.

Not very far away, Anders and Reema Amell stared across the tablecloth at one another, elbows spread flat against the oak, and ducked their mouths behind folded hands.

"Oh, God," she whispered, giggling, sixteen and holding laughter inside as best that age allowed. Black hair slanted forward to veil either side of that pretty, snobbish face. From this position, she had an excellent view of the templar clique that supped several yards behind her guilty friend. "Oh, Andraste's garters. Did you see his cheeks? – they were so _red_. He always gets so _red_, I swear. Give it a minute. Just give it one more minute and I think he's going to…"

"What on Thedas are you both _doing_?" Finn asked, straight-backed two chairs over, separating his turkey meat into two neat piles of light and dark. Mealtime was only halfway through; six separate classes gathered as usual this hour, candles lit, bellies full of fresh kitchen fare. It was a daily ritual. Hungry classmates ate and conversed in lively fashion around them. Recruits in various armored states attacked mutton, stewed potatoes and corn cobs across the chamber. Several masters from both disciplines cordoned themselves at a separate, neutral corner and lazily discussed lesson plans. Dinner was a generally peaceful time in the Tower, to tell true; growling stomachs conquered rivalries, satiated tempers, and stuffed mouths made arguing difficult. Instructors drank heartily and servants bussed courses to and fro, transforming everything into a flurry of silverware, napkins, spices and wholesome dishes.

Closer to home, Jowan sat cluelessly at Lawman's left, trying to navigate a sloppy hen leg. Godwin and Petra, meanwhile, were bickering over the divvying of three sweet-rolls (only one of which had sprinkles). Robe sleeves dangled precariously over soup pitchers, tomato slices escaped salads, and bread crumbs littered the floor beneath hungry magi and warriors alike. Their ranks were segregated only by the empty space between table rows.

"Nothing," they both shot back – something that could never be farther from the truth when those two were snickering and secretive.

The ginger sniffed and started chopping his asparagus. He flopped a napkin on the miserably-failing Cufflinks's lap. Poor boy was currently trying to figure out how an entire greasy mouthful thumped from the thigh bone to his knee. "Is that so? It certainly doesn't sound like nothing. It sounds decidedly like something, actually."

"Eat your color-coded chicken, Flora," Anders told him.

Finn bristled at the nickname, resisted his constant urge to correct, and left them to their mutual insanity with a defeated sigh.

"Do it again," Wick egged.

The blond lad propped his chin on one hand and raised an eyebrow, grinning away. "You want me to do it again?"

"Yes, yes! Do it," she said, so he bent the spoon into a catapult, stuck out his tongue-tip to aim, and let fly.

The pea connected, twanged off, rolled somewhere inconspicuous, and their game took a sudden plunge toward dangerous as Cullen lurched up.

"He's standing!" Reema rasped, green stare pooling wide in a mix of wicked exuberance and fear. She watched the knight-trainee's shoulders wrack, purple uniform quite complementary with that clammy, fire-ant hue of his forehead. Anders stiffened, not daring to cast a glance behind. They both dropped their heads low. Amell sucked air. "Oh, _shit_! We're baked! He's coming over here!"

Sure enough: the telltale clanking of metal boots grew louder as Ronald neared. Birdie's expression, brown-eyed and looking a bit frantic for all his delight, widened. But the smiles did not fall. They were wedged firmly, condemningly in place. With only moments to spare, both apprentices clapped palms-over-lips, trying futilely to control the shaking of their shoulders.

A gauntleted fist slammed down on the table. Anders looked at steel fingers dig in beside his plate. He did not look at the fuming recruit – not yet. The young man swallowed a gale of humor before it exploded through his pointed nose. Somewhere nearby, Jowan was choking on a chunk of glazed bird.

You could hear the templar breathing – a frustrated, bull-like _whoosh_ from nostrils that flared. He did his very best not to notice Reema.

"H-Hello, Ser Cullen," Anders managed to chirp, teeth sinking into his tongue, chest feeling as though it might explode. His mouth was twisting pitifully to keep the mage's teeth within. "Can we help you?" Barely able to breathe, he reached over and picked up a serving bowl, ceramic filled with warm noodles. Two lanky hands held it out to the templar. "Did you want some more linguini…?"

Across their table, Wicker looked like she might die.

"_One_ more time, mage," Cullen growled, jowls grinding like a mabari sire, cheekbones pink as a virgin Sister's ass. "Do not test me. Not today. If this happens _one_ more time – if I feel so much as _one_ ping behind my head, or anywhere – Maker help me, I will make sure you live to regret it."

They were silent and contrite as he left, sitting straight, trembling with the effort of reigning back their howls. Ronald sat back down with a victorious, rigid '_clang_.'

Anders flashed Reema a look she knew well, pasta bowl steaming between his hands. "He did say one _ping_, didn't he?"

The girl gasped. "_Noooo_, Anders-!"

But he was already sliding up and walking casually towards the recruits' bench.

**-oOo-**

Standing in Sundermountain and facing this reverent little prince, Anders found his voice in the form of 'prejudiced' and 'very ill-at-ease.' He was about ten seconds from bolting over a foothill and into those reddish, cicada-snapping, shadowy woods. "And I suppose the Grand Cleric also told you to put me out of _my_ misery, given the chance?"

His only response was an amiable, patient, completely non-hostile blink. "Actually, no. Funny you should mention, though. I had planned on taking a trip to the undercity weeks ago, when a few good Sisters mentioned rumors about a free mage plying trade – you can never be too careful when you hear an apostate's in your backyard – but Elthina forbade it. Told me I was by no means to touch you. Said you used to be a Grey Warden – blessings to Ferelden in this time of recovery – and that it exempts you from Chantry oversight. Also said you did more good than you did harm."

The healer should've been two counts relieved and one taken aback by this information, but he snorted, lids falling to half-mast, and said only: "Joy."

"But that was all before I knew you personally," Vael added, grinning, winking one impossibly blue eye. "Hope there's no hard feelings over a little well-meaning zealotry. You can call me Sebastian, my friends," he announced, not knowing – or perhaps just not caring – that the scraggly, slightly hunched Kinloch apostate had no desire to be his _friend_. It didn't slow him in the slightest. There was a quick dip of a bow to Cala – one the novice noble entirely forgot to return – and then decisive movement to shake Anders's hand. Anders wouldn't have, but that sodding idiot grabbed his arm in two mitts and almost jiggled it off the mage's shoulder. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Andraste's tits. You couldn't even fight with the man.

There they were, Hawke and Anders – surrounded by cooling cadavers, hovering together beneath this overcast Free March sky like the punch-line of a _Two-Little-Mages-In _joke – waiting to see what Prince Starkhaven was about to do next.

"…I suppose we're headed back to Kirkwall now," Cala decided, not quite sure what to make of this peculiar turn.

"Well, you're going to have a time of it if you slog back on foot. Surely you can smell the rain rolling in westward. I propose we travel together, and can share my charger on the way. I'd welcome company, and you look like you could use the rest."

Hawke looked to Anders, who looked back to Hawke – their faces smudged – and they couldn't do much but shrug in tandem.

"All right. Can't see any harm in it. With you, then," the woman declared. And she quickly set about gathering loose belongings – cutting Flint crests off leather jerkins; retrieving rings from slain cohorts; pulling rolled rain capes from their dead, bloated mounts. Cala operated with detached professionalism. Sebastian stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly for the so-called charger. Anders stood about and popped his tender, swelling knee. Inaction won him a _look_ over one of Hawke's shoulders. "Someone could, theoretically, help me with this."

When he moved forward, the damn thing locked up, buckled, then took the mage right down on his cap with a distinct and heartfelt: "Maker's _bitch!"_

Cala was nice for caring – but, of course, she had to blurt it out to the far reaches of Thedas: "Anders, you're injured!"

Lying was challenging with a coal-black bruise and your tear ducts welling up. Fingers numbing with healing magic, he flopped over and manually rotated his knee. Loose fluids made it feel like jelly; the mana reduced distension, but not much. Some things simply had to patch together on their own. "It's not anything," he grumbled. "I just fell funny on it, is all. Twisted it."

Anders wasn't a big fan of pain. Being a craftsman of broken-bones, split tendons and stitches, this aversion made perfect sense. Oh, he understood the danger appeal well enough… and certainly had it explained to him several times whilst held in compromising positions by beautiful, leather-bound women – which included a _vast_ range of scenarios, to think on it. Once, shortly after his fifth escape, a delightful half-elf girl in South Reach (the town he'd always know as having a wonderfully ironical name) had tried sneakily cuffing one of Anders's wrists to a headboard – and he'd panicked, fearing templar agents, elbowing the poor thing right in her mouth before clambering for a nearby windowsill. Perhaps it was a product of running; distress, even in play, brought back memories of Circle life… shackles, supervisors and the consequence of disobedience. Alas, this was simply not a depravity he could share in.

It stood to reason that the mage didn't soldier-up and ignore his ailments when traipsing over muddy battlefields – in fact, he was _very_ vocal about any physical discomfort he felt – complaining of aching feet, dry eyes, broken fingers, pulled muscles, et cetera. You won more flies with honey than with vinegar, after all; sympathy generally worked much better for his interests than pasting on a warrior face and acting barbarian, anyhow. Yes, he used to be quite the complainer.

If leading their afternoon skirmish hadn't been strange enough, _now_ Anders found himself chomping his tongue and trying to nonchalantly walk off the bloody church bells gonging away from shin-to-ankle.

"I just need to wrap it, as all," the apostate muttered, fumbling for a sinewy stick and pulling one bandage roll from a coat pocket. "Give me a minute to make this splint and I'll be ready for a night of vigorous ballroom dancing." It clicked sickeningly into place. His face contorted. "That's how Irons celebrate victories, right?"

Hawke gave him a hard look. "Don't be sarcastic," she scolded, plopped down her current bundle and moved to stand over him as though the woman was actually capable of doing something about it. (Healer, Cala was not… but she'd have better luck curing the bumped knee than Anders's terminal case of sarcasm.)

"Oh, no. We can't have you limping along all this mountain terrain and making it worse. That'll make for terrible time." And here came Prince Starkhaven with his fingers looped through a palomino's bit, caparison jangling on the horse's flanks. The beast looked just as vapid and decorous as its owner. It blinked at him in milk cow fashion. "You've both just been through a battle, and I'm not very tired. Why don't you ride and we'll walk beside you. Don't worry – Fenella's very friendly."

"I'm sure I'll be-"

"If you're hurt, you're going to ride." Hawke confirmed it with no room for guff.

And, as many unfortunate Darktown thugs had no doubt learned during this past year-or-so, you oughtn't argue with a Hawke unless you were one.

Anders didn't have to be pleased about it, though… watching the backs of Cala and Vael's heads stride ahead of him, discussing this-or-that fact about Flint Company and Free Marcher affairs. The war spoils, smashed bits of her breastplate and supplies jangled at his side. Neither mage nor spirit were fans of Chantry 'honor'; still, Justice's observation that this stranger "seemed like a man of his word" did not provide much in the way of consolation. It wasn't that Sebastian had given the apostate a personal reason to loathe his shiny, self-righteous soul (yet, anyway); it wasn't simply because a blown leg made him grumpy, though that might've contributed. But there was just something _irking_ about so much gloss and holiness in once place. Even easy-going, "skirt-wearing" (credit to the fat-axe wit of Oghren) fellows like him took it a tad poorly when some polished-up, nancing Marcher made you feel all at once like the party's token mage and a five-year-old with skinned knees.

Anders looked particularly sour as he sat on the back of Prince Vael's plump, hay-chewing horse – wounded leg held rigid by a twig – and added "damsel" to that list.

Afternoon rolled into late, murky evening. Sebastian's forecast had not been wrong, either; whether the sky shifted to match his deflated mood or perhaps only to torture them further, it shifted along with fading daylight. Soupy clouds billowed over pines to burst, pouring down three miles from Kirkwall's gates. It left them trudging quickly through mud, sodden cowls sticking to foreheads, arms and backs. Rushing was vain. They were soaked within moments. It did not mist and speckle out here, like fair Amaranthine; here, Waking Sea rain was a mugginess that saturated through the skin and to the bone.

"Despite this mess, I'm awfully glad you were there," Hawke shouted as the creaking of docked boats and clack of streets opened ahead of them, civilization pushing up through countryside. The City of Chains was never silent. Guardsmen hollered to and fro to harbormasters. Droplets bounced upwards against waves teeming with grouper. Lanterns swung on their hooks, glass dripping. It was hard to make out much past foggy earth and the city's mellow light. Their hoods were melting to their faces, and all that could be seen over Cala's shoulder was a few sopping strands of dark, snarled hair.

"Don't mention it," Vael assured, bobbing his head. "I'm glad I could be of some service to those who already performed one for me."

Hawke didn't say anything – followed placidly through the Hightown Arch – except she'd been looking at Anders.

Even once they had passed that heavy fence, the water did not stop. It flooded the gutters around Meeran's office. It made cobblestones treacherously slick for someone wearing a splint. It pattered rooftops while they drank down Varric's generosity in _The Hanged Man _that evening, and Anders could still hear it squelching in his boots, smell it in his hair, feel how heavy it made everything seem. Storms in Kirkwall were not clean. They brought saline coolness chased by dense, choking heat.

"Do you prefer Lady Amell, or Cala?" Sebastian asked with his hand around a cider cup and a plate full of steamed crab.

"My name's Hawke," Hawke said, mouth full of fish, and the way she did made Tethras laugh and kick her shoe beneath the table.

All this considered… Anders really hated Sebastian not because he was faithful or good-looking or made great entrances, but because the man had probably never dropped a fork in his life.


	13. Surge Gates

**Surge Gates**

When it rains in Kirkwall, it pours.

_**Consider the plight of the mages as though it applied to any other group,**_ Anders wrote, brushing aside bits of the third quill he'd splintered today, pressing letters too hard from the aggravation of actually having to explain this. Bitter drops rattled the clinic roof.** Any other group, and you will see that to punish living men and women for an ancient crime is absurd. The enslavement – I have no other word for it – of mages occurs not because it is justified or somehow making penance, but only because the victims are mages. If Ferelden began stripping Orlesian nationals out of their homes and locking them up for the insults of their government, Thedas would be in uproar. Should mages expect to cause less outrage? One chooses to be born mage just as much as one chooses to be born Orlesian or Fereldan or elven. Why must we ask permission to be alive? – and, all too often, be denied. Seems fear makes for a fine excuse for atrocity. **

**I have heard it suggested that Circle fails because of its design, not its existence. I agree that the Chantry could do far more to protect mages from the abuses of its templars. I agree that there might be less hostility in the Circles, themselves, if templars were trained to act in a guardian capacity _for_ mages rather than as their jailors. My problem with this suggestion is that, because of the way things have run for so long, a mage-friendly vision for the Circle is impossible. I have lived in Kinloch Hold for over half my life and I have stood in the shadow of Kirkwall's Gallows, and I tell you from experience: the structure is too old to be rebuilt now. The disdain and the power-play between mage and templar will resist change no matter how some Cumberland court tweaks the rules. And I doubt that the Divine would ever grant her pass to any of these ideas, no matter how wise or good-intentioned they are. This is a compromise we cannot afford to make again. For the mages themselves, and for those who know and love a mage – or love the principles of justice and liberty for all peoples – there is only one course of action, and the Chantry has made it clear.**

**We must refuse.**

**I understand that some will shy from this truth because it is easier to reform and resign than to refuse. Refusing is a difficult thing for a group that has worn its shackles willingly for so many generations. In the face of dangerous change, promises of peace and neutrality from clerics are tempting. But the fact of the matter is that they are in a weak position to offer advice. The priestesses who make these 'neutral' solutions are so far out of touch with what occurs within their Circles that**

A fat trickle of water slipped through Red Candle Clinic's ceiling boards and began plinking directly onto the apostate's head.

"What the! For the love of…? Knickers?" Anders cussed, screeching away from his desk and shooting the leaky roof a glare meant to will its melting mortar back together. No such luck, of course – not in this part of the city. He discovered a large gap that had forked its way between two planks, sand-and-clay adhesive worn down by the weather: a depressing blend of humidity and tropical storms. Overhead, rain glistened in thick rivulets that threatened to plunge. Heat lightning flashed inside oppressive clouds that churned a mixture of charcoal and mauve. The sounds and light bursts never seemed to stop. They carried on all night – they flooded low-laying cottages, whisked away dinghies, painted shores in the pink of dead shrimp and cleared midday plazas. They stung in high gusts, pelted shop stalls into closure, made chapel horns whine. They drove criminals inside and scattered even the gruffest urchins to their hammocks, fearful, squeezing bedclothes-to-breast at every boom.

In the loudest nights, Anders may have jumped awake clutching his sheets a time or two, himself.

It was hurricane season in Kirkwall, and – like all other dangers in this place – the thunderheads announced their arrival with destruction, disease, and a hateful roar.

Sounds aside, the sheer amount of water that assailed this city was daunting. Fierce winds tore their fingers through Darktown's canvas, rippling district walls at speeds that lulled or frightened depending on the angle. Seabirds huddled dejectedly in every dry cubby, battered by cold droplets; they were as bedraggled as docked fishermen, growing piles of week-old wash, sodden guards in chainmail, and so many adrenaline-addict children that flitted precariously close to a drowning death whenever the air pressure dropped. Palm trees bent to touch their toes. Hail hammered the slatted tin atop his warehouse. Several yards splintered off the quay just below when someone's boat came loose and smashed into it nose-first. A pilot whale washed ashore on the third day – belly bleeding from grey stone, nose scarred, eyes bloated. Forget suffocation. Within the hour, it was carved and eaten down to bone.

"What happened to the roof?" he asked everyone, but no one had an answer.

_Everyone_ consisted of whomever lost their sleeping nooks to the rising tides, watched their lean-tos blown over, or perhaps never had adequate shelter in the first place. The McKies were here, sitting on a bed with boxes of their meager belongings: a tapestry, two pricey china plates, biscuit tins, family papers salvaged from Ferelden. A handful of orphans crept about, gnawing on bread crusts. Abbey, Cedany and Terrowin – ever in three, ever in that order – were playing with one of the minerwives' toddlers (he wasn't sure which). A few homeless beggars Anders couldn't name crouched miserably in alcoves, trying to remain unseen in their misfortune. Peddlers Farley and Dabson had a nice diamondback game spread across one mattress. Mimsy was breathing smoke about all the commotion, burrowed her mangy black body beneath a bandage crate, and refused to come out – even to eat. He had to push her dishes under the damn cabinets then try to fish them back out again with a hooked finger.

They'd set up camp here for the past half-week – cramming the mage's warehouse from corner-to-corner, huddling against dank walls and each other, wincing at every angry spit the ocean flung against his boarded windows. Waves were climbing sixty – sometimes seventy – feet before arcing forward and smashing against the stout wooden legs that held up Darktown. Stones piled along city piers helped to curb the tidal flow, but not enough; broken floodgates sent many Undercity dwellers rushing for safe ground, sewers gushing full, coastal shacks cleaved from their moorings and chewed to splintery bits. They scuttled to Anders because they knew him (or knew of him) – a doctor, obliged to take the desperate in by moral codes; a mage, who could protect Kirkwall's rats from hell and high water, they were sure.

The mage himself could stand to be a little surer of this fact. He'd bolted both heavy double-doors, hinges cracking in these gales; his lantern wouldn't have survived, so the apostate quickly painted and nailed a ragged tarp above the barricade: **CLINIC IS OPEN. **

Anders sighed. So much for dry weather.

The leak overhead was still dripping steadily away. The man beneath it attempted to relocate – covering his damp hair with one hand (as though it might be a remotely successful tent), its partner struggling to gather up loose manifesto pages. They exploded… as most things tended to do around a jumpy maleficar. He sloshed an ink bottle, furniture legs scraping floor. Black splattered. His boot toes squeaked against the slippery boards.

An escaped mage appreciated freedom more than the common man. Anders appreciated freedom more than anyone else he knew – dirt under your nails, mountain air that burns the throat, cold wind shredding through robes, ocean-side sweat that turned to salt and reddened any open skin. To be able to run until you ran out of breath, not hall; to scream at the top of your lungs and have no one around to shut you up; to wear your own clothes, cook your own dinner; to scrape your knee and leave it; to go hungry, thirsty, sleepless, penniless. The exhilaration of a storm beat the placid afternoons lounging beside Lake Calenhad, listening to sailboats clink beyond great stone walls. The biting weather trumped shelter in insulated dormitories, studying on pillow mats, warm cider pooling in your stomach. Comforts were cheap. He did not demand much in the way of them, because it meant more to provide for yourself and suffer than to live like a songbird in someone's cage.

But, all that considered – Anders could do without hurricanes.

A milk pail would catch the rupture for now. Deeming it fixed enough, he climbed aboard a top bunk, rewet the quill in his mouth, crossed long legs and flatted parchment over one thigh to keep writing.

…**so far out of touch with their Circles that their counsel is only used to placate templars and mages both. Recent history is proof enough for that. When in the past decade has a meeting of priestesses actually changed a policy? One needn't be a student of history to**

That was as far as he got before the door bang.

Sure enough: barely three sentences in, a fist was thumping insistent and harried against Red Candle's buttoned-up entryway. Anders cussed again and set his ink down carefully. Hopping off, the maleficar dashed over, unlatched four locks, and peered through to the slick streets outside.

Standing there beneath a sopping blanket – drenched to the bone, lugging a crate under one arm, but smiling – was Evelina's boy.

The mage frowned. "_Walter_," he spat, greeting sharpened with a mix of concern (because that rainwater whipped and rotted) and annoyance (because this was, despite all his scoldings, the third morning in a week he'd swung open the hatch to this very blond-and-scraggly mop). "How many times do I have to tell you to stay the hell insi-"

The lad shoved his box, bundled tightly in protective cloth, at Anders before he could finish. It was surprisingly heavy; he unwrapped two layers of burlap and flipped the lid to smell fresh, bundled, (miraculously) dry straw. Walter stood in the doorway, happily soaked to the marrow. "Evie sent me over with this," he announced, ignoring the unfriendly welcome. Kirkwall's most underpaid surgeon set the crate down with an unimpressed – but grateful – bang. A boot nudged it safely beneath his desk to avoid any condensation. _Thrice_ in six days, always sodden and beaming, shuttling things to and fro between his adoptive mother and his ad-hoc mentor. Anders always took the offerings and angrily sent him away; _you'll-catch-your-death_ warnings didn't seem to stick as they should, though. Today, a hitch in the hail, and sure enough… "Said you might need some to keep your fire going. How is everyone? Do you need any-"

_Help_. Walter wanted badly to help Darktown become something more, and it was an honesty of character that Anders couldn't help but feel shamed by – especially in a boy. When the mage had been that age, he'd desired nothing but to escape the wretchedness around him; there were no aspirations of fixing it, and certainly not enough bravery to take selfless risks. (Not to mention that, while the liberties they were denied brewed deeply-buried hatreds, Kinloch Hold always provided hot food and insect-free beds.)

"No! For the last time, _no_ – you insanely helpful child! Go home! Go cower in somebody's closet and whine like a proper Fereldan does in a storm!" he cried, knowing his irritation would be ignored. The apostate yanked him in only long enough to throw a fresh cloak over Walter's stupid, well-meaning head. "Seriously, though… what is the matter with you, anyway? You're going to get blown off the damn walkways bounding around like this, and swept out to sea – and struck by lightning – and eaten by sea monsters, probably, and then who the hells is going to clean all this mess up afterwards? You're just being selfish, is what it is. You're not being responsible at all."

"But you _are_ out of kindling, aren't you? Aren't you?" Walter, still speckling the floor with rain drops, was craning for a glimpse of fireplace.

"There's a point here – there is – and you're missing it," the mage groused, shaking out his waterlogged coverlet with a weighty 'crack!' Anders twisted it and threw the crumpled result back at him. The run-off dribbled quickly between floorboards. He was not above begging. "Please, please, please stay home. You know your mother is a force mage and I don't want _The Fist of the Maker _crashing through my roof one night if you don't make it back. My roof has enough problems."

He supposed it wasn't a secret anymore. There had been rumors – rumors Anders wondered if Walter didn't start himself – that this lanky, fair-maned, care-giving boy was the doctor's bastard son. It was the typical story of a father escaping Circle capture and returning quietly home to train up his brood, separated by years and distance. While this particular runaway wasn't quite old enough for that theory to ring true, he could understand the occasional curiosity. They did vaguely resemble one another. Well – if you turned your head, squinted and wrinkled your nose. He didn't like to think on it much, though… mostly because it triggered perspiring, stomach-churning thoughts as to how real a possibility it was he _did_ have children bouncing, wailing – perhaps zapping – their way through Thedas. Anders hated those thoughts. They made the fine hairs creep upon his neck for reasons he could not quite define.

There beat a part of him – buried deep – that knew the greatest fear was a child in a Tower with his own face.

"_This will change, friend mage. I promise you. If you believe in nothing else, you can believe in me." _

There was the oath of an iron voice from within. There was a clinic full of people shuffling around him. Anders shook off the mirror images of sharp nose and pale crown, and he swallowed.

"G'day, Walter," the trio of half-elf girls tittered from their rug; their ragged target blushed back a hello.

"Sorry to burst your bubbles, but Walter's just leaving," Anders reminded the lad before he got caught up in flirtation with those blundering, well-meaning junior prostitutes. He yanked an itchy hood over his assistant's head before a hand clapped on each gamey shoulder and spun him about. "You go straight home. I mean it, yeah? Sincerely – it isn't safe out there." They steered towards that creaking door; the mage doubted he was being listened to, but as Justice liked to lecture: one had to try, didn't one? Maybe a bit of extra flare. "And if you show up here again, I'm going to light you on fire. I am. I really am. Don't tempt me."

"You are _not_. Besides, it's storming. I could run outsi-" He closed the door on Walter's skepticism. It clinked and turned shut.

"Oh, c'mon. He could have stayed!" harrumphed Abbey, the red-headed little leader of Darktown's unofficial travelling brothel, who marketed playfully but never followed through. They were only children, trotting about with poorly-painted faces, shortened skirts and lemon-streaked hair. 'Colorful beggars' was a more accurate term than whores. "We don't take up that much room. Could have squeezed him in between Cedar and Terri."

Walter dealt with, Anders cracked the straw crate Evelina sent and pulled out an armful. He cut away any leftover rope binding then tossed it into their small fireplace, gratified by the crackling sound and a few pops of mold pockets. The leak still spittled away, of course – but it was a relief to keep all these poorly bodies warm in here despite what raged outside. A brief flick of fire magic set their hearth fully ablaze again. He hucked the full catch-bucket out a window latch and set it back upon his desk. That erratic _'pink-pink-pink'_ sound was maddening, but at least you couldn't very well hear much over the constant growl of hurricane. Thunder distressed the sky.

"No. Not even if you gave me a silver for every flea bite you've accumulated in your wishy-washy ickle lives," the apostate informed them – ginger, blackbird and blonde respectively. No need to single anyone out. You could safely clump the taunts of one into a three-piece street act. "This is a hospital and there will be no _squeezing_."

"You're no fun, Mister Anders," Cedany sighed, and her two cohorts promptly settled down to pout.

"I know. It's not my fault, though. I just have a dark raincloud following me around all day," the mage lamented, elbowing an unamused Justice waiting inside his head.

He'd just settled back down to write when there it was: another insistent, self-confident _knock_.

This was a touch too persistent, even for Walter. For the second time in the past fifteen minutes, Anders leapt off the mattress ladder and stalked forward. Despite an off-kilter grin, he moved with a gritted, agitated purpose.

"Everyone, eyes here…" The doctor cracked his fingers as he walked to heave open Red Candle's oversized entrance yet again. "One flaming welfare case, coming up!"

_Merrill_.

She was drenched head-to-heel, bare toes bluish beneath the mud and sand mix, tiny black braids rained out into depressing gnarls. They tangled to stick in miserable hanks against high and hollow cheekbones. Heavy drops made that hook-nose wrinkle and scrunch. The elf's entire bony frame was knocking beneath its sagging robes – which, it must be said, were never in strapping condition to start with, and now swollen stitches barely held it on. Green eyes had rawed more scarlet than emerald from fighting salty Free March winds, lashes crusted, lids barely able to open beneath this constant deluge. There were rips in her stockings, small teeth that chattered, and hail chips were melting in every clothing fold.

"Anders, my house has flooded!" she shouted over the din, strangely matter-of-fact; so much buoyancy was startling when the poor thing looked like a drowned sewer rat crawled up from a gutter to mewl its last agony. "May I stay with you, please? Pretty please?"

He'd barely given his nod yes before Merrill dashed gleefully into the relative safe haven of straw fire and a (fairly) sturdy roof. Water pellets burst from her like a shivering dog.

Anders hefted the doors shut again whilst the wiry Dalish exile stuck a long finger in each tapered ear and swabbed deep to clean out her canals. It didn't work, apparently; when he turned about, grabbing for cleaning rags, she was tilting her head to and fro in an attempt to dislodge the buildup. He would've laughed were it not for the hypothermic tone of her thin lips.

He piled towels on the girl like a laundry heap. She gladly began to scrub the dampness away. "Maker's sake, Merrill, you look like a stork washed away with the tide. Didn't you wear a coat?"

"I don't have a coat!" she chirped, face muffled by cloth. The girl began peeling off her leggings, then, still squishing every step. They dripped like sad, dejected, dripping things. Her shins, normally a sickly Hinterland pale, lost what little color they had and now looked jaundiced. Merrill's ankle bones jutted beneath skin like a skeleton's. There wasn't an inch of meat to be found on that lass – she'd freeze in a first Harvestmere frost, whisk off like a leaf in a whirlwind.

"A potato sack, then?"

"I didn't have any potatoes! Where should I put these? Oh! Hello, poor people of Darktown!" The elf finally noticed Red Candle Clinic's other occupants. Drifters and ousted families generally could not afford to choosy about the company they kept; odd looks were the extent of their reaction. Abbey, Cedany and Terrowin blinked at strange vallaslin patterns winding around this woman's mouth. Farley harrumphed and scooted his cards away from the spray.

"Just throw them somewhere to dry," Anders murmured. "Back of the chair, there. That's fine. Maybe I have something around here you can wear. Or a quilt, or something…"

"Thank you so much for letting me stay! Madame Amell said I could take a room in the servant's floor if I needed – Leandra is such a sweet old lady, don't you think so? – but I didn't realize how badly the rains were getting! Thought maybe I'd be swept away if I tried running that far. I'm glad your house is closer."

He was rummaging through his supply closet with limited success when the first telltale _clink_ rang out. Merrill truly wasn't wasting any time today; he twisted about to see her peeking through the pots upon a counter top, sniffing contents. She must've dropped in once a week, these days… and no matter how familiar they got, it never took long for that loopy doe to break something new.

"Is this barley soup? I didn't know you could cook anything, Anders. It's sort of watery, though, isn't it? And… ooh, someone made hot chocolate!"

"Don't get excited. It's only coffee."

Merrill, who couldn't find any mugs, was doling herself out a bowlful to sip when Anders approached with the best he could find: a coarse fur coverlet. The mage brushed off as much dust as possible (which admittedly wasn't a whole hell of a lot) before slinging it over her fragile shoulders. Blanket folds engulfed the girl from neck to knee. Holding it shut, hunched over and hopping awkwardly, she struggled out of her ruined garments only to leave them sopping on the wooden boards. There was barely any dye left; evergreen bleached to a weak, deer-hide tan. She didn't like the coffee, apparently, because one taste left it abandoned beside a medicine shelf.

Anders, having done all there was to be done with the sodden tumbleweed of elf, clambered back to his workspace. He lit an extra candle and set it atop the nearest ceiling rafter. Nimble fingers tightened his ponytail rope. The top-floor mattress creaked in its frame as the mage sitting atop it fought to find a comfortable position, pages crinkling; he balanced the inkwell in his lap. _'Where were we…?'_ Justice remembered.

**One needn't be a student of history to note how all so-called Circle "reforms" have ended in abandonment, half-cocked efforts, or failure. Don't be fooled by the Chantry's diversion tactics. They don't really give a whit; templars are trained to suspect us of witchery and bad behavior, common folk rear their darling babes to hate the sight of us, and the religious nuts behind them all can't be bothered to spit. **

"_This paragraph lacks polish,"_ the good Ser observed, put as diplomatically as possible. Anders scratched through it and tried again.

**One needn't be a student of history to observe the doomed cycle of Circle reforms. Attempts to improve upon the established "way of things" have ended only in abandonment, half-cocked efforts, or failure. Do not be led astray by the Chantry's diversion tactics. They have no intention of restructuring their prisons; templars are trained to distrust us, common folk coached to hate us, and the religious figureheads are content to sit behind it all unmoved. **

"_Yes, that is stronger."_

Another strange side-effect of union with a Fade denizen: brevity. Anders had become a much better writer – and one with much better penmanship – since this hard spirit took fort within him. His essays had always rambled in class; instructors were rarely amused by 'improvised data,' very serious Chain Lightning diagrams (complete with screaming Order recruits), or lines written in verse. This new author voice was more fitting for political works and the like. Perhaps it was the crusader's forbiddance of flourish that made these pages substantial; perhaps it was that authoritative, commanding tone ink-stained digits scribbled from gut to quill. Did it matter? Fine products were fine products. Though he still jotted incoherent notes and schoolboy doodles in margins, sometimes the abomination wondered if his parasite spoke directly through a ghost hand. (No real complaints, though… Justice might've been a boring storyteller, but the booming knight was far superior at resonating speeches, noble diatribes, and spelling.)

"What are you doing up there?" Merrill whispered, peeking over the bunk's ridge, covers tied around her in an ugly toga. Her eyes were innocuous wells.

"_Distractions! Always distractions! Do not your fellows appreciate the importance of our work?" _

'_Talents feeling underappreciated, are they, Tinny?'_ Anders thought with a smirk. He could already detect the metal and ire; Justice did not approve of their spindly Dalish tagalong. But Justice didn't approve of most things his vessel liked – house pets and funny Keeper-rejects among them._ 'Warm welcome to my life, then.'_

The spirit grumbled something impatient and dotted a ferocious period with his host's hand.

Still, these annoyed undertones didn't begin and end with Justice – or, if they had, grains of irritation had since seeped through to the apostate. Amber eyes felt tired, lids dark from late hours. Knuckles rubbed at his brow. He glanced down at the girl's sparrow nose and shot her an unenthused look. "I was sort of trying to work today, Merrill. You know. _Work_. There's some crackers in the cupboard just there if you're hungry. And you're free to take a nap til' your clothes dry off."

The hint was missed completely – in fact, Anders thought it safe to say his point flew clear over her darling little head. "I didn't know you were a writer!" she chirped, boosting up on tippy-toes and permanent optimism. "Thought that was Varric's hobby. It doesn't sound like you at all, if you don't mind me saying. But I'm sure you're a very good writer. You're good at everything else you do. What are you writing? Is it a novel?" A scandalous gasp. "Is it a _racy_ novel?"

The healer cocked a brow and stared flatly at her. "Your mind's a sieve, sweetheart – you know that?"

She blinked happily at the accusations.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but _Hard in Hightown_ will have no competition from me. I'm not a writer; I just have beliefs," Anders explained, a bit weary of all this explanation. "We've talked about this, remember? I'm working on a manifesto."

"_Ooh_!" – the second _ooh_ of this evening, no less. "A manifesto! That's so official! What does it say?"

In the next instant, she was up the makeshift stairwell – dragging that hideous, lumpy mass of blanket – over a parchment folder, and flopped down beside him, mossy orbs straining to see past pauldron feathers and low light.

"Don't read over my shoulder! I can't stand that!" He clapped the papers defensively to his chest.

"Sorry, sorry…" A sweet grin – it didn't make the scrunched mage any less hostile. Her legs pretzeled beneath the quilt like a meditating Chasind wise-woman. "I didn't know you would be so sensitive. Should be more careful about my manners, I know, but humans are so odd about what they find rude. Leandra says I'm getting better, though. Madame Amell's trying to civilize me. She has me over for tea on six-days. We eat lady foods and read poems from this ridiculous Orlesian book. You know, I can use a crab fork!"

Anders did not think _he_ could identify – let alone use – a crab fork. "That's… really something, Merrill. How are the Hawkes?"

"_Amells_," she corrected incidentally. "And they're fine! I think. I haven't seen much of Cala this month. She doesn't lunch with us. She's always so busy. Besides, I don't think she likes tea," the girl whispered delicately.

Yes, it was hard – hilarious, really – to imagine the trussed-up Cala Hawke trying to stab crustacean shells with teensy silverware and a fingerbowl. They had not chatted for some time, but Anders assumed aristocratic titles kept young inheritors far away from Darktown by necessity, and Hightown wasn't exactly welcoming to him. It was all right. Two illegal mages oughtn't be spotted cavorting together often in the paved orange stone of Kirkwall proper… might bring conspiracy charges down upon their heads, followed by one freshly-sharpened axe. Former service with the Greys only extended so far; gentry names were limited by the history they touted, and hers had dangerous magicks. "What is she up to these days?"

"This and that, I suppose! Aveline's had some trouble with patrols, I think… she was saying something about anti-Fereldan protests in the ranks the last time we talked. Cala, I mean. Not Aveline. Aveline doesn't acknowledge it. Oh." It was slipped in as an afterthought. "And that hills prince has been by the estate quite a bit lately! Sebastian. Nice enough man, but I can't help think his armor is a wee bit… _silly_."

Anders's snort gave away more than the doctor himself might've meant to. "You're kidding me. He's still around? He's annoying. Didn't figure Cala'd put up with him flouncing about."

"Well, you know. He _is_ royalty. I suppose he can flounce where he pleases," Merrill observed, puffing the nearby buckwheat pillow, picking lint off its case. As always, the girl spoke more truth than she knew. "And Cala is nobility now, so it makes sense for them to be friends, doesn't it? Just like we're both mages. Down here in the dark and the seawater. It makes sense."

"I suppose it does," the man decided sourly; he said nothing else of it.

A moment passed. Outside, droplets and occasional palm leaves pummeled the sides of Red Candle Clinic. Wind and waves howled through dock bellies yards below; sewers gushed, flags were ripped from poles, bazaar tents collapsed. Inside, the warmth was lulling against fears that never fully settled. Their hearth was still piping and hissing away, straw-flakes eaten up in slow embers, a comforting scent of wet barns. The half-elves were chittering quietly amongst themselves. Kale and Susan McKie's babe cooed around its tiny fist. A beggar whose name he did not know stood up and shuffled over for a cup of flavorless soup. Anders did not say anything; he studiously shuffled and stacked his leaflets, scratching numbers into corners, underlining passages. This silence was calming. This silence was a rear edge of a violent storm.

The witch – as usual – wrecked it with a burst of energy.

"I cannot _believe_ my house flooded!" she shrieked, collapsing into a laughing fit at her own expense. Coarse raven tendrils were drying in frazzled angles, rising in the heat; tufts stuck out around large, red-tipped ears. "I didn't even forget to close my windows. It came up from the ground – right through the rugs. My things were all floating about!"

"…good to see you're keeping such a positive attitude about your real estate problems, Merrill. You know the whole place is going to reek of mold when it drains out, right?"

Palms clasped over her mouth in ridiculous glee, struggling unsuccessfully to button the giggles down. They simply escaped through her nostrils. Anders watched in a mix of amusement and irritation. "Yes, I know! It's going to be such a disaster! I'll have to throw out all my carpets! I'll be destitute. And stinky. And with cold feet in the mornings. It will be like I never moved in at all! Like I just got to Kirkwall!"

Sometimes laughing when you had to start over was the only thing to do.

The runaway rolled his copper eyes. "You'll stay here till it dries. I've got plenty of beds." A wrist gesture swirled the battered quill. "And socks."

"Can I really? You're so kind. I'm so lucky to have such true friends," she said, suddenly contrite. He watched her mania cool. It was a look he knew well, settling there, unannounced and rapid as it strangled the joy of being free. It was the look of exiles – peerless, homeless, with no destination and no purpose firm. It was the disapproval of her Keeper, scorn of friends, loss of those who perhaps once meant more. It was a quiet, resolute, sickly perseverance; and it was one that, no matter how far you fled into a mountainous or civilized wild, you never quite outran.

"You'd never leave me in the cold," she said, believing it – needing, for once, to believe it true.

Fir-green eyes stared into her icy hands – and Anders grinned frailly around the familiar kick of knowing how false that compliment was.

* * *

"_I'm not just going to leave him shivering out in the cold, am I?" Tabbie mumbled, nudged her nervous cousins aside, and locked shack door behind them._

Anders was twenty-three years old – run-ragged, recklessly hopeful, and exhausted to his bones – when the runaway first dared venture to their nation's capital.

He had come to Denerim with dizzy, desperate delusions of stealing his phylactery; he'd entertained (uselessly, briefly) the possibility of not being chased for the remainder of his life. Reality never measured up to heroic crime, though – elaborate plans never carried through unhitched, nerves never held firm, charges always turned into cowardly retreats. It seemed so small and so absolutely insane at the same time. All there was left to his brilliant scheme was creeping down into a Circle dungeon, disguised as a grim-faced Chanter, gold hair cut short at his chin and hands sweating beneath counterfeit vestments. He found the cache. He'd bought the smuggler's map. He'd even acquired a full set of robes from the chapel's trash heap – needed a good washing, maybe, but they were intact. So many dangerous pieces, and they all slipped neatly into place… perhaps this time Anders was really meant to escape them.

He never did it. He could never muster the courage. Every day – waiting uselessly for a shift change – Anders would stand in the shadow of Fort Drakon, the fear in his stomach searing through anger and want.

Until "What are you _doing_ out here?" the elf girl asked – accused, really – slight, lilting on her left leg, collarbone forking out beneath black eyes and a bitterly ginger mane.

It had been a day not unlike this wretched one in Kirkwall's battered harbor. Rain clouds swirled in furious, soupy storm fronts overhead, threatening floods. Droplets fell tangy cold and infrequently. Thunder grumbled. Mud patches began to rise between each shoe-worn tile square of the Market District, bending the weeds, and heat lightning cracked like lighthouse flashes in the misty Amaranthine Coast sky. It warned of disaster. It threatened to punish beggars, waifs, runaways, thieves – whomever else had squandered what chances at shelter they had.

Anders had no shelter, but beneath the looming flagstone spires, he did have his danger sense perfectly intact. The apostate whirled around, half-expecting city watchmen swinging irons; he glowered at the scrappy-looking woman before him. Finch nose; beady, deathly cunning stare; long, sun-tanned, sailor's arms. A badly-stitched dress hung off her malnourished body. Both the lady's hands were covered in cheap bronze rings, thumbs gleaning with tarnished iron – they carried a bread basket stuffed with wheat, soft cloth, and sourdough. Her knees were alarming winches in frighteningly thin legs. Her sandals had popped all but four of their straps.

"None of your… I mean. Blessèd are those who follow the path of the humble in silence," Anders fumbled, hopping straight, tilting his head at the appropriate angle of righteousness. The approach had startled him, Alienage wretch or not – but he stood firm. He sucked the wet air. He bit the inside of his cheek, barely able to keep a sober face, nose tickling with allergens and the effort of not snickering for all the ridiculousness of being arrested in a pompous Holy Sun smock. This gruesome, nippy afternoon would be the only time Sunday-morn lessons ever had a practical use in the mage's life.

"It's fit to squall," she said, unconvinced, making no comment about his Chanter-disguise. The woman's stare was flat, features whittled sharp, and her tawny shoulders were thickened by years of sunburn. The nasal voice was low-born, middle-pitched, but shrewd. "Shouldn't you be getting inside?"

"From grey clouds comes the Maker's life anew." The verse was decorous, arrogant, and painfully made-up.

She narrowed. "I walk by this alley every day. I _know_ you aren't a Chanter."

"Er. Lo! Alas, the… There be light from the darkest of… um. Hark! His legions sing in…"

The elf set down her basket and crossed both arms over a sunken chest.

"Magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him?" Anders tried, one eye scrunched, watching for the lines of her young face to twitch. They didn't. She bored at him with the laymen's skepticism of living in a city slum.

"I thought so," the girl said, heaved a sigh, and leant back on one calloused foot. A tiny coin purse chinked on her rope belt. She smelled like saltwater, chimney smoke and the docks souk. "Jailbreak or stowaway?"

"They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones," he lamented, tongue clucking, hands cupped theatrically over his heart. Did not matter how true this was, for the Order sure as all hells had branded him as one. "They shall find no rest in this world or beyond."

Dramatics didn't stir her, but she seemed to have gotten the apostate's point. Elves were never friends of human administration; warnings against blood-crazed apostates and demon temptations reached their pointed lobes, sure enough, but they never felt _tangible_ against the immediate threat of a guardsman's blade. When a misheard comment, false accusation or the admiration of a lecherous arl's son could end you, escaped mages felt like a small sin. Perhaps this was why she seemed so unimpressed by the common sight of a fleeing Circle boy. Or perhaps – draped with the too-large peacock robes of divine Chanters – Anders simply didn't look very dangerous. "Yeah, well. You're like to get struck by His wrath out here," the elf observed, glancing at her dirty nails. "Don't you have anywhere else to go?"

A lieutenant clanked down their overgrown lane in splintmail and a terrible mood.

"What are you doing, there, knife-ear?" he barked, chain links rusting in the light mists. They both skittered in response. She lunged down to grab her purchases, hackles bristling, tussled mane of short lava hair standing on its ends. "There's no loitering on this street! Where d'you come from? Where d'you think you're going with all those baked goods?"

Those charcoal eyes went straight to her toes. The pauper's posture slumped, wire frame slackening, contrite as an undercroft mouse. "Pardon. Beg pardon. I come from the fishmarkets on my way home. I only stopped to listen to the good Chanter, ser."

"All men are the Work of our Maker's Hands, from the lowest slave to the highest kings," Anders agreed, blinking slowly, looking as consecrated as he imagined consecrated could be. Rapidly running out of verse, the apostate plastered on a sage stare. He clasped a long, fraternal arm around the woman's stringy shoulders.

The officer was not placated; he sneered beneath a patchy moustache, jowls peppered with black stubble and meanness. "Where'd you get those coppers, elf?" His nose, broken once, dented. A thumb jerked to the cheaply-made decorative coins that stood in for buttons on her sleeves. "Probably stolen. Probably nicked 'em off the trinketsmonger down at the smithy gate, am I right? Well? Spit it out, girl, or you'll get a boot to the shin – I warned you."

It wasn't real metal – it was painted pewter, Anders could see – but at his allegations, the lone elf began to retreat. She looked as though another step forward would make her run. It would have been a grave mistake – to watchmen, a fleeing elf was always a guilty elf – but what other option was there when faced with prison for wearing flimsy baubles on the wrong day?

The Chanter pushed his way forward. The girl shrunk away; the guard furrowed, snorting, watching dumbly as this young-faced priest gingerly patted one steel vambrace. His expression unwrinkled from cruelty to confusion.

"Ah! Those who bring harm without provocation to the least of His children are hated," Anders chimed in, a kind reminder, and smiled up at a brutish mug. The blond's pointed nose sniffed. The lieutenant frowned. Beyond towers, steeples and sloppy brick walls, a rumble shook up the air.

"And accursed by the Maker," Anders added quietly, politely. "Forever."

_Grunt_.

"And _ever_," he threw in – just in case one "ever" didn't do the trick.

Good Ser Guardsman squinted at them a moment longer, coughed his disfavor, then nudged onward with a gruff flick of the wrist.

Cyrion never quite trusted him. Soris never quite managed to overlook the rounded edges of their new cohort's ears; Shianni never drank herself completely witness left alone with a wandering mage. Nola almost slept with him, had she not been set to wed that summer; and Tabbie, of course, never once questioned his friendship or his reasons for running away.

A cold and bony hand grabbed his. "Come, Chanter, you'll miss the two o'clock mass…"

"And Andraste said unto him, 'Shall I follow you. Shalt your Word become my song and my Chant. Shalt I spread it unto the far corners of this land, and shalt I not rest until your face is known. And shalt you take the high road, and shalt I take the low road, and I'll get to Redcliffe before ye…'"

Fingers clamped, the odd pair had walked quickly down a side culvert, navigated loose apartment beams, and were nearly out of sight when something set poorly on the soldier's eyes. He choked his bronchs clear. He peered through the thickening fog. They moved swiftly and confidently. There was no stumble or telling gate. Yet that feeling of knavery _lingered_... persisted as Alienage lass and young Chanter made their way forward. It could not be accounted for from a brief conversation. So he took stock, then, of their backs, searching aimlessly for some strange thread that seemed amiss. Scrawny knife-ear, no weapon bulges poking at her worn-out blouse; thin priest, proper robes, brass collar, nervous verse…

_There!_: in the damp shade of a hostel balcony, barely visible, one gold flash at his left ear.

"Wait a minute," the officer ruffed. "Hold where you are!"

They bolted.

And thus went the story of how Anders, craven apostate in a Chantry dress, was taken into Lorani Tabris's home.

He did not forget his phylactery – but the presence of others, after so long in flight, helped him to forget the failure of falling short. Disguises, dank cellars, leafy tree branches and hollered warnings kept him safe from templar searches; human intervention and pretty lies saved new friends from a lawman's whip. The healer stitched their cuts and set delicate noses snapped in scrabbles with neighborhood gangs. He mixed tonics for elders' rheumatism pain and kept their stoves burning during wood shortages, even in the winter cold. His skin tanned from sun exposure, red dust began to settle in leather boots, and the cracks in their unpaved pathways became familiar enough to roam at midnight. Seven months he lived among them. It could not feel like home, living here amongst a jaded race who naturally distrusted his kind… and yet there was comfort in it. There was comfort in a new family, of sorts – in a brood of fire-haired cousins that would feed, shelter, and fight for him simply because they were brethren. You helped each other in the Alienage. Where so many others looked away, cosseted in wealth and opportunities, here you did not turn a cheek.

So the Tabris flock went on living their lives. Anders was merely a stray living in the food cellar – but spiders, cheap wine and a lousy hammock were better comforts than a pretty Tower prison.

The mage never really believed he'd stay – couldn't picture himself growing grey and near-sighted amongst these knobby elven kin. He wasn't sure why it snuck up on him, then. He couldn't explain exactly what it was. But the urge arrived one night, tart and wild as it had been a dozen times before; a strange taste in the mouth, a shrill breath down the spine. Suddenly the short ceilings of this shantytown were suffocating. Suddenly he could not sit still.

They never fought in front of him. Cyrion was much too shy and polite for that. But he heard the wizened shoemaker shout at his daughter, and the dishes that she broke overhead.

The girl had to have known it was futile. This small family argued viciously into the night as her birth date neared, but she had to have known it was useless to debate for independence when your people were a withering breed. In a culture where old customs were the most precious commodity of all, it was to be expected that the child would always lose.

"_I'm so damned glad you're not an elf. I'm glad someone else realizes how stupid this is,"_ Tabbie would say, pinching at his stomach with an affectionate "shem." In the dim confines of her father's shack, Shianni gulped ale; Soris moped; Nola pricked her fingers bloody on the hemlines of two bridal frocks. _"Mostly… I'm just glad you're here. I wouldn't want to do this by myself."_

Who knew why Lorani rallied so hard for him; who could explain her companionship, so instant and so freely given? Maybe it was because she had always felt like an outsider there, trapped among traditions and the old order of things. Maybe it was because the chance to offer charity came rarely to people as poor as hers. Maybe she just liked blonds. He didn't know.

Six hours into that night – two weeks before her wedding day – Anders ran away.

And when he found his way back to the great tree years afterward – the acrid spectre of Justice within – Anders learned how two weeks later, coerced into that stupid ceremony, his friends had all been murdered, Lorani in her virgin-white gown.

…

_When the brigands attacked Rylock's camp, humble and isolated as it was, Anders peeked out from his tent to see an arrow throbbing in the canvas. _

"Hey!" he shouted, half-a-grin, a ridiculous blond head sticking through the tarp. A single earring winked in this lowland mist. Sandy fringes stuck to both sides of the mage's face. Long hands were bound behind his back in rough, disciplinarian rope; amber eyes glittered excitement when they fell upon the lone, bleeding, pincushioned templar guard. "Would this be a hold up? Oh – don't shoot! I was just wondering if you needed any help?"

The stony, flaxen-maned elf scout and her blinking half-blood brother looked at him a moment – then to each other, brows scrunched, as though this sunny boy just bounded out naked and singing Qunari gospel.

"Hear me out, hear me out. In the event this is a heist – and I do believe it is – I'd be an extraordinarily helpful accomplice," Anders pressed, managing to stand up in his binds. He scurried, hopped, and stumbled his way out; the chain connecting both ankles made it difficult, boots locked in heavy cuffs. The pair stared at him like some circus freak fallen off a troupe caravan. Even now, he was springing his ungainly way towards them across the tender dawn grass; dew squealed beneath his soles, fog making feathered robes weighty in this green tumble of Coastland moor. A toe caught the dead captain's flung-out gauntlet – sent him thumping to the ground. But he leapt up undeterred. The man's voice echoed hopeful and spry through evergreen trees. Clouds blotted out the pale-ale of a northern sun. "I know all there is to know about these good Chantry men! I can tell you where their leader is, when she'll be back with her lot, how much gold they carry… the whole kit! Seriously, you need me. I wouldn't pass me up."

The woman – infinitely sharper than her very vanilla, sword-toting sibling – affixed him with a scowl. Lime-liquor eyes darted from manacles to mage to the gentle fescue hills rolling around them all. Straight-clipped, fair hair tickled at the blunt chin. Her thin lips twisted, grimaced. Her cutting teeth gleaned. To Anders's relief, though, she lowered her bow the tiniest bit; its next bolt rested patiently inside the knock. You could have broken diamonds with her stance, vinegary and strong, no softness to be had anywhere in body or soul … but there was wisdom there: a greedy curiosity that kept arrowheads from sprouting into his vulnerable stretch of throat.

"Who're you, then?" she demanded – churlish, raspy, more masculine than she'd earned with that modest height. The lady outlaw's brother dear brought his blade back to its business position. "You stop right there. Stop hard or I'll shoot you dead. What are you on about?"

"I am _so_ glad you asked," the oddly amiable victim sung out, squeaking to a short stop. "My name is Anders, milady: healer, student of magic, and – sadly – this strapping outfit's prisoner. And whom do we have the pleasure of being bandit'ed by this fine morning?"

"Milo. I'm Milo – and this is my sister, Namaya," the half-elf answered – because how else could you respond to unexpected cordiality but with more of the same?

This divulgement earned a fierce, vengeful look from the girl. As with most violent, evil schemes... especially those including blood and hijacked coin... the lass was clearly in-charge here. She spat out a warning and a _"Don't give out our names, you fuzz-brained_ _idiot!"_ Milo shrugged defensively, ginger mop mussed, fighting back with the same bile-colored glare. It was already obvious the boy didn't lift a finger without consulting Madame Mastermind; already obvious whom he ought to direct his persuasions at. Still brandished that damnable sword, of course, but progress was progress – and Anders considered it an excellent sign he hadn't been gagged or spitted yet.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," the apostate said, bowed, and almost fell forward for it. "Now, is there anything specific you're after, or is this just your general raid?"

The armored corpse, lying face-down on his belly, let out a hideous post-mortem wheeze as Namaya's tiny boot stepped on his lungs. She had kneeled down to cut off every bit of studding before either man got out a word.

"The second one," Milo commented, helpfully.

"Take his Order signet." Anders chimed in with advice, tilting his head towards the woman, grim work still underway. Her victim – Ser Lars, he thought the gorilla's name was; that clean-cut oaf who always grabbed his pony tail to pull their captive to his feet – flopped over in rotten-fish fashion. Terribly tragic, that. "It's fine silver; they wear them on their necks. Just reach in his collar and snap it off. There you are."

The pendant was wrapped around her fist and sacked in a heartbeat; Namaya nodded in a grudging thanks.

"Have you ever robbed templars before? If you don't mind me asking," he tried. Crow feathers bristled smartly at each shoulder. "There's a first time for everything, after all. But they galloped off for supplies quite a while ago; you might be pressed to make your leave sooner rather than later. If one of you would be so kind as to untie me, however, I'd be happy to help clean the place out. Plenty of coin in our wagon, by the way. Check under the floor hatch. Exactly. Brilliant. You're naturals. Untie me? Please?"

"Sis?"

"Go ahead," she sighed, grumbling, sweeping the whole criminal affair under a rug. One couldn't keep from imaging a dramatic: _"If you must!"_

"I can see you're the friendly one," Anders observed as the little brother – who wasn't actually all that little, despite his sister's bullying – pulled a pocket dagger and sawed through his cords. There was nothing they could do about these leg restraints, however. The apostate could barely slide a finger's width between boiled leather and metal clasp.

"We're thieves; we're not murderers. Well, we are," he had to admit, flies buzzing the guardsman's leaking body. "But only occasionally." Rope finally snipped away, and – emancipated from their persistent itch – Anders gratefully rubbed his wrists, skin around them swollen red. Both shoulder joints howled from the pain of release when they fell forward; he rotated them as much as the built-up acid allowed, still glad for freedom. "And our nan was a mage."

"Good on your nan, then." Wasting no time, Anders grabbed for the sturdiest rock he could find. Thumping to damp crabgrass, the prisoner hefted it and began hammering away at his leg chain; five strokes before sediment crumbled, and he went fumbling for another stone. _One_, _two_, _three_… the disappointment on his stubbled, bruised face between each dull clang didn't bode well for a fast escape. There was barely a dent to trace. He targeted the rustiest link instead. Lars bled steadily two yards away, tongue already bloating between grey, anemic gums. Wretched old bugger. "Where are you both headed, if I may ask? When you're done robbing the lucrative travelers of the North Highway, that is. Damn!" The chunk of limestone fell to dust in his hand.

"You're awful nosy for a con," Namaya shot out, hauling a provisions sack from their wagon. The horse harnesses, empty now with Rylock and associates gone, jingled in Waking Sea breeze. Cedar and burnt underbrush whisked through the small camp. She tossed the lumpy pack to Milo, who slit it and took knee to sort through. From their pecking order, he guessed she was their mum's rightful child, knife-eared and indignant; dimpled, ham-fisted and guilty for breathing, the mutt was the bastard. Wasn't that always the way of it?

Anders – sitting on a clover patch with steel binding his feet – watched thoughtfully.

"Is there any chance two enterprising cutthroats like yourselves would be interested in a hard-working, amusing, magical slave? Pre-shackled. Hale and hearty. Trained in medicine. Excellent dancer. I'd go for a fortune in Tevinter."

"We don't deal in the flesh-market," the woman spat at him, as though this insinuation scalded her… slayer of holy folk and all. Ah, well. Political correctness was always a gamble with elves. "We're _thieves_," she hissed, an excuse he'd heard twice now, as though this was somehow an acceptable defense for malice. "We're not slavers."

"How about a compatriot, then? I've got healing, impressive lightning, and I'm great comic relief. I'll make you coffee. Wash your clothes? I can speak four languages. All right, that's a lie. But I am pretty intelligent, if I do say so myself. And I am a _really_ excellent dancer."

"No," she snapped.

"Come on!" Anders whined, staggering back upright, tripped up by the stubborn chain. He paid no mind to the golden strands in his face. "Comb your hair. Open stuck jars. Reach things up-high."

"_No_," the elf growled.

"Laugh at your jokes. Buff your armor. Be your best friend?" the mage asked, puppy eyes and pouting lip at Milo.

"Are you deaf? We don't want any stragglers. We're full up-" But she didn't finish the rejection this time, arms full of prayer candlesticks. Namaya dropped them all across the plain. Venomous eyes stared straight over Anders's shoulder and into the spruces beyond. Her jaw swung open. No sound came out.

He didn't have to turn around.

"Oh _shit_," the apostate cussed, and felt Ser Rylock's ironclad snarl darken still air behind him.

"WHAT," she boomed, a voice like a thunderhead. Black braids, coal eyes, raven's beak – there was no mercy or sympathy to be had with that woman, more harpy than human. "IS THE MEANING OF THIS."

It was not as if Kinloch's warder and her men could've possibly been unaware of precisely _what_ this was unraveling at their campsite; it was not a question, but a death threat. He could hear the menace in her voice. Anders knew that tremble well – had faced it time and time again, running from Calenhad to the far reaches of this realm. Sometimes he joked when she caught up to him – riled her nerves with blasé reception, bored sighs and immature innuendos. Other times he shouted obscenities and implied bloody escape parties both knew were not coming. Last time, they had fought. He had broken out of her prison line in the fragile hours of sunrise; he had set fire to that dilapidated hostel she'd found him in, jumped out a window, rawed his lungs in the scramble to escape. Rylock was not stupid. She did not fall for feints twice. She hunted him down on horseback, flushed into flatlands like a fox; they wore him down, driven into a rocky ravine. Then, when the apostate began to slow – mouth split, bleeding between his teeth – they dazed him with nullify bursts and rope. Templar soldiers lassoed him around an arm and a foot; before Anders could cut free, Ser Rylock had leapt off her charger, flattening him face-up beneath breastplate and fist. He couldn't breathe. He thrashed, clawed and shoved – tried to bite her – but she pinned him down until her troops had chained the mage. The dust from hooves burned his eyes, stung his already damaged throat. They bound him. And the vengeful hag stood up, toothmarks bluing her forearm, nose bloodied – both of them winded and disheveled. She puffed and spat in the dirt. He screamed himself hoarse, cheeks tear-streaked, prostrate and defeated – until the dismayed, angry shouts of _NONONO_ became hateful, pathetic roars.

And when he'd exhausted himself – stunned back into dumb, familiar silence – Ser Rylock ordered the mage picked up and locked to the back of her wagon train. She gave no indication of trouble. The blood had drained from her veins years ago – left a frigid, snow-white game hawk, whose only satisfaction was chasing down hares in the field.

"ANDERS," she cautioned, as though he'd come to heel.

Anders looked at her with the whites in his eyes swallowing their brown.

He took three steps backwards, seized Milo's swordarm, and hauled it awkwardly to his own throat.

"Help, help!" the apostate cried, falling backwards against the poor, bewildered boy's scalemail. "I've been taken hostage!"

Namaya, bowstring taut – and Rylock, molars grinding –said it at the same time: "_WHAT?"_

"I tried to fight them off, but they were too strong! I was overwhelmed! I didn't stand a chance," Anders wailed, gagging himself with fist holding the brigand's glove in place. No one moved. "It was terrifying, it was. Absolutely horrifying. I couldn't even- even- Heh!" An unenthusiastic Milo dropped his arm, and the mage fumbled for it, hoisting the blade back to a properly thuggish place. "Yes. I'm quite… well, I'm thoroughly humbled and incapacitated, it seems. At their mercy, is what it is. Really. Tragically."

"Namaya-?" The boy was beginning to sweat. Soldiers glared at him. She was silent and gritted down around the prospect of sailing an arrow straight through one of these four templar recruits' brows.

"Don't anybody do anything rash," the elf finally spoke up, showing her canines. Fingers popped against the catgut. The arrowhead hummed at Rylock's sternum. Dark, glossy templar eyes flickered wrathfully between the scout and her killed cohort. Her nostrils flared, a murderous war horse. "No need for anyone else to die. We don't want to hurt your pretty mage, but Maker as my bloody witness, we will if you force our hand."

"_Yes_! Ah. No! No, alas!" the mage cried, euphoric, distressed tone at odds with the blissful relief yawning across his face. "Do not take me away from my brother templars! How will I survive outside of their constant, caring eye? It's out of my hands, you see?"

The brutish, wintry matron was undeterred. Even Lars's cold spit seeping into this rich Fereldan soil did not undo her fearsome calm. "Your first mistake in this foolish endeavor is not checking your marks," she told Namaya, pitch even, like nails scratching coffin lids. "That man is a dangerous criminal. Whatever he has cajoled you into believing, do not. His tongue is a snake's and it can speak only lies."

"_That_ is just plain nasty," Anders the semi-hostage noted, and gave a wounded sniff. He tilted his head and murmured an aside to the brigand behind him. "It's not true, really," so whispered the mage. "I'm a perfectly nice criminal. And there's nothing wrong with my tongue. She's just a sore loser."

"Your second mistake," Rylock thundered, "was assuming I _care_ if he dies."

It was a bluff – insane as such a suggestion might've been, the apostate knew his captor cared very much. Not about his mental health or overall wellbeing, no – but about retrieving him alive. Maker knew why so much of this woman's self-value was tangled up in breaking Kinloch Hold's infamous escape artist to his proper place. But there it was, and it was no use denying: Rylock would hunt and stomp Anders bloody whenever he tried to run, but in that same turn, she'd defend him true as any obedient mother mage. His death would be a failure equal to a final flight. He understood that. Their goodly Order was destined to execute him someday, surely, but this onyx knight would not deal that ending blow.

Yes, he knew as much. _They_ didn't however.

Anders saw the vacillation in Namaya's hard stare – felt her brother prepare to shove him forward, the large artery in his neck throbbing. He did not wait for it. He didn't try to sway them into being allies, either – explain that Rylock would kill them both for their insult, surrender notwithstanding. It would fritter away time and opportunity he'd never have again.

Instead of bargaining – which never won with templars or bandits – Anders dealt Milo a smarting backwards kick to the kneecap.

It flashed by in an instant. "_Oof_!" yelped the boy, sucking air, body rigid. And when – more surprised than injured – he buckled, the apostate grabbed his elbow, swung it overhead, used their small momentum to send Milo stumbling forward over his leg chain. The mongrel tripped right down. It took them both together – warrior to his shins, healer to one knee just behind. Five fingers dug commandingly into the lad's deltoid. Still hanging onto that spaghetti arm, Anders twisted it around his back, sword clattering impotently to a thistle patch. Poor, spooked sod didn't know what was happening. The runaway pounced on it – sweaty hilt, heavily forged. He snatched a fistful of pumpkin orange hair and placed that tapered scimitar against its owner's jiggling Adam's apple.

"What about _him_?" Anders jeered, grinning with coyote teeth against the hostage's oddly-shaped ear. "Does anyone care if _he_ dies?"

There was a perplexed, stampeded silence.

"Help?" Milo gulped.

Rylock most certainly did _not_ care if this clueless child was gutted like a fish – but his half-sister sure as hell did, and she'd had her stingers trained on that frosty bitch since they first came tromping home. Protecting her sibling now meant protecting the fugitive, too; it served them all well, really, and guaranteed their lives as best he could. When the templar took a lunging step forward, Namaya rumbled like a wildcat and bent her bow tips back a foot.

"DON'T YOU MOVE A MUSCLE," she screeched, and the soldiers stopped in their tracks.

"Brilliant! Now that we all agree, I think me and my new friends will be going. What do you think, new friends?" Anders asked – quirking a brow at the elf, turning his claw-grip on her brother's shoulder into a pat.

"I think yes," Milo squawked. The hooked blade point was poking into his jugular. He shot a frightened look at Nayama. "I think definitely yes."

"The boy says yes! There you have it. And how could you say no to this face, really?" He released that gingerbread mop and pinched the shook the boy's cheek like a toddler's, making him look stupidly at Ser Rylock. What could the unfortunate sap do about it but kneel there, looking vulnerable? Her back teeth began to grind. "I could do with a key, please. Fast would be an ideal pace. This sword's awfully heavy. It'd hardly be my fault it if happened to slip."

"I don't want to die," the embarrassed outlaw noted, feebly so.

Anders clucked his tongue and dealt out a jab to the ribs. Milo winced like he'd been gouged with a rapier. "Stop your bellyaching. Don't you know smart bandits never kill their only hostage? I'm only saving our hides, is all." He cleared his throat at all these unseemly dramatics. "Where's that key, now? No use stalling. I'm sure one of you knows where it is. You all never misplace a thing."

"Give the mage what he wants," Sister Dear thundered as best delicate elven lungs allowed. Her well-oiled weapon creaked. A purple-sashed corporal reached into his belt and removed a lead-eaten key ring, pulling one square-shaped item off, tossing it resentfully at their feet. There was genuine fear in his countenance beneath the derision; all eyes were trained on the scrawny rogue threatening their superior. Rylock's showed none.

"Would you please?" Milo fumbled forward in the grass, snagged the key and pushed it into Anders's heel shackle with numb fingers. "Thank you, sport. And the other one. Perfect; you've been great," he said, and pulled them both upright, leaving that ugly chain sitting in tall moorland weeds like a fat, sluggish cottonmouth. The moment it fell, his body felt relief – not only from physical restraints, but from the dead-nerve sensation of magic-repressing binds. Bastard templars didn't have time to shout "don't"; mana bubbled back inside the apostate's veins, tickling his nose, twitching his fingers. _This_ was much better. This was how it should be. Feeling like himself again, he shook like an animal run in from the rain.

Anders pushed Milo away from him, not caring how the white-faced lad stumbled, and when he picked up an arm it was crackling mist-blue.

"I think we could do with those horses, too," the mage suggested, flicking his chin to where two dapple greys stomped amongst juniper trees. Electricity tangled around his fingers; he cast the sword aside. Fresh supply packs from Highever jangled on their sides. Namaya – perhaps because she had picked up on his scheme; perhaps from instinct; perhaps because the lady was simply a mean, spiny witch – kept her bow trained on Rylock's gullet. "Couldn't have the fine regiment galloping after us five steps away. I hate to ask more of you, especially after you've been such a good lad, _but_...?"

Anders gave a pointed _ahem_, glancing markedly from boy to the stamping chargers. Free-handed, sweeping his discarded blade off the ground, Milo dashed over to do as he was told (which was generally how successful bastards operated, anyway). The half-blood quickly secured Kinloch's pair of geldings; he took reins straight from a soldier's rigid fingers. He hurried them back across camp at a trot, ropes bunched in one hand. They gummed their bits in confusion, lips frothing – but otherwise, felt allegiance neither here nor there. Laughable lad ducked as he ran, fearing a holy hatchet might tumble through air and hit him from behind. It didn't. Milo ran under his sister's wing again, her barbarian arrow glinting beneath an overcast sun.

"You're all right?" She did not dare glance back to check. He nodded wordlessly, but the woman understood without seeing. "Good. Grab what you can and throw it in those rucksacks. We're leaving." Teeth gnashed at the small templar squadron. "ALL YOU TIN SUITS – down on your bellies! You all best be planting your noses in the next five seconds, or I'll paint your captain's face full of holes! That's right. Down you go."

There was a hilarious chorus of clacks, groaning hinges and clattering cuirasses as the fully-armed recovery platoon did as they were told. All save their stalwart commander, at any rate... who stood stoic and statue-firm before a certain death, her end held back only by one girl's finger. It did not faze these novice scoundrels. The elf did not crack even an inch of smile.

Namaya, stone-faced, shot an unpleasant whistle in Anders's direction. "Come on, then, you!"

The mage gleefully scampered towards horses and elves with Chain Lightning still brewing in his fist.

Rylock did not look at her charge – he would pay for this later. She fixed the full force of her graveness directly at their leader apparent; an arrowhead was of no consequence in that dead bitch's even deader stare. "You will regret this."

"Maybe. But not as much as you'll regret it if you don't bow down right now and kiss the dirt your Maker made you."

Anders hadn't planned on riding with these rascals long – the nearest township, perhaps – but when Ser Rylock's cheek touched the topsoil that morning, he could have sold himself into their service with a smile on his face.

And so the healer had been a highwayman that year. For nearly fourteen months, they'd wound a jagged path through rugged Ferelden wilderness – scrub forest, mountain ranges, sandy beaches scattered with dark stones. They waylaid merchant wagons, noble caravans, moneyed-up military sons and diplomatic convoys. They'd popped metal buttons off Chantry robes and stripped jewelry from the throats of high court ladies. Sometimes, they'd stage robbery-within-robbery and send their scrappy blond mage running ahead as bait, luring would-be vigilantes and good Samaritans into traps. It was a role that suited him – as did the freedom of this life. The tactics differed, but the goals were always wonderfully plain.

And they were an awfully strong trio – their talents complemented one another, ensuring that hard times never synched belts too tight. It was a matter of finesse. In parlays, the three made a clever band: Namaya would threaten, Anders would charm, and Milo stepped in when their blustering failed. In battle, they were a balanced set: magic struck horror alongside arrows and blades; and, on those several occasions they were sent scrambling through underbrush cupping in blood, the apostate pieced them back together beneath elm branches and cool mud. He would brew potions from tree sap. He'd bird whistle from an oak-top whenever army scouts came slogging into sight. He would sit on the back of their tiny wagon, shoulders hunched, boots swinging. And he could not complain about any of this. It was a simple and thrilling existence, rustic as the timeworn adventure stories Senior Enchanter Sweeney used to read in Kinloch Hold's nursery hours. They did crime. They earned coin. They told jokes over campfires – face-up towards the blue Bannorn nights, crisp air smelling like bluegrass, hickory smoke flooding their lungs and stomachs full on a farmer's stolen hen.

Best, though, was waking up – dozing into the afternoon, drinking coffee that'd already gone cold because Milo couldn't sleep past eight, casting trout lines into a stream and wondering whether or not they really fancied doing anything at all today.

It was only transitory. Anders knew that. A runaway mage couldn't live as a brigand forever, low-class or not – and though it was rare they dallied any place over one week, he had never been able to stagnate in life. The apostate would feel capture creeping up behind him, some mornings... climb out of his bedroll, look at the ashes of last evening's fire and itch. He'd see cross-legged Namaya count sovereigns while her bored brother whittled leftover firewood into malformed animal shapes, and smell dread in the wet breeze. There was no point trying to explain why. They had become his friends, but it was decided long ago he could not stay.

Anders and Milo had been watching rice cook when she tromped up to them one evening and gave him a reason to run.

"Look at this," their leader scoffed, thrusting out a flier she'd pulled from some West Hill market stall. The warrior caught it in one hand.

In thick, official print:

**BY ISSUE OF THE KING'S ROAD PATROL:**

**WANTED **

**FOR THEFT, ASSAULT AND GENERAL KNAVERY**

**TWO ELVES (ONE MALE, ONE FEMALE) AND A HUMAN MALE, ALL OF ADULT AGE, NAMES UNKNOWN. LIKELY WORKING TOGETHER. LAST SEEN ALONG THE RIVER DANE, PREYING UPON MERCHANT TRAVELERS. AT LEAST ONE BELIEVED TO BE MALEFICARUM. EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION.**

**REWARD PER HEAD:**

**ALIVE – 60 SILVERS (80 for maleficar) **

**DEAD – 40 SILVERS (80 for maleficar)**

**REPORT ALL INFORMATION TO YOUR LOCAL CONSTABULARY. HEAR AND HEED!**

Midway through the page – crudely-drawn, lacking small details, but undeniably them – three hand-sketched portraits, labeled only by race, color scheme and height. Anders wordlessly looked down at his own face flashing a simpering grin back up from the parchment.

"Look like idiots, don't we?" Namaya snorted – because she could not admit anxiety. "My ears the size of a goddamn barge. 'Parently think he's my son instead of my brother. Anders, some berk drew you like an Antivan whore."

"This isn't good. This isn't good, at all. This is distinctly bad," Milo stammered, peaked beneath all his carroty hair; for a moment, the apostate thought that comment came from him. Anders ears were dinging steadily. There was a ridge of fine hair standing up along the man's back. He couldn't tear his gaze away from that cattish, inky smile. "I guess we knew it would happen eventually. What do we do? We can't just... I mean, should we set up somewhere else? Towards the Hinterlands? South Reach, maybe?"

"What the hell are we gonna' do in the Wilds but get aten up by witches? No, no. It's simple. Got an uncle up in the East Frostbacks who'll let us lay for awhile – you remember Barin, Milo? He's not so far off. We'll quick grab some tack and cross north of the lake... pass through by Orzammar. Should take us four weeks in the fair season – or not much more than. Faster if we sail, too."

The mage's blood ran cold.

"I don't want to pass there. I'm not setting foot anywhere north of Lake Calenhad," he insisted. Milo looked at Namaya. The girl hawked saliva in a pile of embers.

"That's the way we're heading. It'll take too long to skirt around south like a cowardly poodle bitch. And it's not as though we're waltzing up and knocking on the Tower door. You keep your head down. You'll be fine."

None of it factored. "I'm not going."

"We're all going and that's the end of it."

"I'm _not_ going there," Anders said again, feeling his jaw clench.

She hadn't been serious; it was only the way she spoke.

"Then leave, all right?" Namaya spat, turned on her heel, and stalked away.

The next morning, everything was different.

In the morning – just before daybreak, when a pale pink sun hit the honey locust leaves – there were no more questions about what Ser Rylock meant when she said: _You will regret this. _There was no travel, no trio, no coin to be found in their savings tin. There was no farewell note, no apology, and no explanation. Not that one was needed. Namaya came back from her dawn hunt with a freshly-shot partridge and no fire burning to brown it on. She found ash from a buried pit. She found missing rations and silver weapons stolen from their sheaths. She found her bastard brother humiliated and seduced, roped unkindly to a fir tree with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth. She found the harness of their only horse cut limp in the wagon breeches, not so much as a stray copper left behind.

There was no Anders. He abandoned them penniless on a lonely stretch of forest road.

...

_Namaya, Milo, Tabbie, a dozen meaningless marks worth only how far their resources might carry him – it became a very familiar tale._

And then there had been Sylvie Eddelbrek – maybe worst of all, there had been Sylvie Eddelbrek. Poor, pretty, desperate Sylvie Eddelbrek... who'd had a noble inheritance, a key to the fortress dungeon, and an unwanted marriage arrangement with Tamor Loren's grandson four months away. Anders had been apprehended by some self-important Order retiree southwest of Amaranthine City while the mage was trying to buy a damn loaf of bread. There had been no trial, no inquest, no checking facts or second opinions. He'd been dragged to the nearest Bann's castle and sentenced before a half-full court in a naked stone hall. Lord Eddelbrek had him clapped in irons and thrown into a cell to rot until the templars came on their yearly trek to the Coastland estates. Anders was sick with hunger and moldy undercroft air when an opportunity presented itself in the form of one sympathetic, half-senile house servant who brought him a blanket for Haring nights and ended up ferrying love letters to her mistress upstairs. She was maybe nineteen years old.

_He was suffering_, Anders wrote. _He glimpsed her in the courtyard on a made-up daily walk and couldn't sleep since_. _Would she please write back_, is all he'd dare ask. _Just write – and maybe he could clear his head_. She did. _Would she please tell him what her days are like? What are her hobbies, what is her pet pup's name, what did she secretly want from life? It is so awfully dark and lonely in here, and he has nothing but her letters to keep him company. _She did. _He, too, knows what it's like to be trapped. Does she know much about the Circle?_ he wonders. _Freedom is all he has ever wanted, too. He hears her. He can understand. _Then: _Would she please find it in her heart to come and see him? Just once before he is, as all apostates are surely doomed to be, executed. It would mean the world. It is his last wish. _

She did.

Anders would have kicked himself for such an obvious, saccharine-oozing risk had he only been thinking clearly, but as false as they smacked to any discerning maid of the world... these honeyed words carried through. Subtlety didn't matter. He was looking for any out to save his life and she was looking for an excuse to ruin hers.

So one night, Sylvie Eddelbrek did come. She gave him her cloak for the cold. He asked to touch her strawberry braid. And when she stepped close, he seized her mouth through the jailhouse bars and kissed it, and then from on it was not fabricating a romance but _planning their escape_.

Anders left her in a slumping Amaranthine inn with no coin purse, no virtue and no explanation – Bann Eddelbrek's gold bought a dawn voyage to Gwaren and the next leg of his life.

And then he'd laughed about it – like the whole sordid affair had been a lark for drinking stories and glory days.

They laughed, too. Annie choked on her venison in the firelight; Sigrun snickered at stupid surface girls, eyes rolling; Ogrhen guffawed, drunken and half-asleep. Who knew what became of her? Who knew if the noble family ever took her back? – if she'd been torn from a pedestal and father's love by one selfish mage who valued his freedom above anyone else. Her life was crunched and scattered to the sea winds, most likely, but what did that plague him? Maybe she threw herself into a wave; lived destitute; sold herself as a local whore for food and warm beds – so what? His happiness mattered most; the wicked acts and satin lies of trying to keep it was, apparently, fodder for jokes. The story of that girl's broken heart went down nicely with lukewarm beer and roasted chestnuts. It wasn't just him. It wasn't just _his_ rotten morals that came up short; the humor in destroying some well-bred trollop because he _could_ hadn't been imagined, and it wasn't some bitter attempt at shrinking old wrongs. It was funny. It just _was_.

Everyone laughed.

Except one.

"You are _revolting_," Nathaniel told him, and left their giggling camp in the dark.

….

_Anders wasn't used to being hated._

It was a statement made in half-truth, honestly – for every mage, whether they'd admit it or not, wears the thick callus of living in a world that believes you are a curse upon Men. So, yes. He was partially accustomed to being hated. Loathed on account of magic, at least… reviled for how he was born, or by whom he'd escaped, or because he carried in his low-born blood a shard of the Maker's powers to mend and destroy. Eventually, the disgust of the common weald becomes mundane enough that you no longer care for their opinions, either way.

Anders was used to being hated for what he was – not _who_ he was, how he acted, which face he chose to traverse the world. There was no changing his magic; those that detested it were a waste of time. But as for the others – for those that did not read their Chant verses with looking glass and candlelight every evening after holy mass – he felt a different sort of pressure. Here, it was not about divine questions or earthly sins. Here it was very important to be liked… and Anders approached social interaction with a charming, devil-may-care ease that made his need for affection seem much smaller than that need truly was. Perhaps he did not realize it, himself. But being admired was yet another intimate proof that Templar Order was full of idiots. Being desired turned what the Chantry decried as perverted into something beautiful and worthy of envy. Being liked meant They were wrong, he was right, and that the only grave offense of his existence was one beyond any mere mortal's control.

Except it usually wasn't this hard. Cheerful Sigrun was an effortless friend; Oghren's comradeship was earned through trading insults; Annie, batty as that twisted bruiser was, chuckled that he reminded her of someone. Velanna belonged to the lost cause category, and Justice – ubiquitous, eerie Justice, who the runner secretly admired and publically questioned – stood somewhere beyond this meaningless sort of camaraderie. Nevertheless, everyone had settled into an acceptable place quickly within his eyes. Relationships and his standing therein were how this rover assessed the world.

Everyone except _Nathaniel_. Which was a shame – because he'd been the one other solider who hadn't run for this Warden title with open, power-hungry arms.

Anders had decided, roundabout his third week at Vigil's Keep, that making surly Nate Howe crack a grin would be a personal mission. He didn't count on the ranger hating him more with every joke, tall tale, misplaced pun or attempt at friendship he made.

This would not have bothered the apostate if pariah Arl Denerim's son had been a religious sort – if he'd burned incense and went traipsing about the Wending Wood whistling hymns, looking for maleficarum to smite. Of the Chantry and its stance on Magi, Nathaniel honestly did not care. This distressed Anders more than anything else. No, the man would not have minded if some snobbish scout had been brought up spitting sermons and resenting magic – what did he care? What good would it do? But that Nate took no guff with mages and yet disliked _him_ disturbed the Keep's new healer. He'd made a game of being friendly and good sport of all the scout's askance, charcoal glares. It did not mitigate the anger when weeks turned to months and Howe had nothing kind to say to his compatriot but an occasional grunt or toothy demand to pipe down.

He'd probably have had better luck talking to a flagstone wall.

"_Oi, Nate!"_

"_Mother said your face is going to stick like that."_

"_Look! An eclipse! No, wait – just your nose."_

"_Knock-knock, Nate."_

"_Have you ever considered the theatre, Broody?"_

"_So a human, an elf, and a dwarf walk into a bar. The elf says-"_

"_Nate, did I ever tell you about the schleets?"_

"_Hey, I'm fond of the Howes..."_

"You know, mate, you're just like me!"

"I am _nothing_ like you," Nathaniel had spat, shouldered his bow, and slogged ahead through the hip-high wheat.

He did not add: "coward" or "you mewling, insidious ingrate." Howe did not undercut whatever fragile semblance of honor a Circle escapee might've had; he had no need to verbally berate him for desertion, slack morals, or cruel acts chased by no guilt or recompense. There was more poison in what went unsaid. There was more derision in patient words afforded to an elven murderer, arguments with two uncouth Duster dwarves, scalding comments flung at a barrel-house drunkard… and only vicious, silent sneers for the nomad mage. It was simpler than it seemed, this antagonism between them. But it was more complicated than easy hate.

Noble, sober Nathaniel did not like the mirror he saw in selfish, precocious Anders; and Anders squirmed beneath the disapproval of a fellow rogue who'd lived a cleaner life.

"Why do you hate me!" the healer had finally cried one grey morning at a battlement watch, slogging up the precarious stairwell after Nathaniel with heavy robes and boots skidding on rain-wet cobble. Retiring guards wedged past them in the narrow walk. Crows shook droplets from their feathers in Vigil's rock outcroppings, carrion dangling in sharp beaks. The fogged iron pauldrons, blue-stripes and plated soles of the Warden uniform settled uncomfortably in this condensation-thick weather; Anders, unaccustomed to its extra bulk, had to pull at the straps holding surcoat to jerkin. He fought with the scarf Annie'd given to shut up his complaints about freezing on early watch. It prickled and slumped undone in response. Nate did not even slow down.

The buckles on the backs of Howe's vambraces winked in this seaward wind. Anders looked venomously at them, still struggling with his scarf. "What are you braying on now?"

Exasperated, itchy, and uncomfortably cool, the mage threw both hands into the air. "Fah! I give up! _Sincerely_. I'm really through. Up till' now, I thought this stupid _sinister loner_ thing you're working on was a trademark of disenfranchised nobility. But you are seriously wearing thin," he snapped, nose wrinkling. It was hard not reaching out and shoving the rattlesnake excuse for a human right in his leather back brace. Howe had turned about to stare at him, anyway – bitter, grayish eyes. Anders glowered back with folded arms and a snort of his own. "So you know what? Fine. You've got your way. I'm done talking at you. Just answer me one thing: what the hell is it about me that offends you so god-damned much?"

Nathaniel looked surprised. He blinked and caught the quiver Anders threw at him. "I don't have a clue what you're on about."

"Oh, yes, you do. Don't give me that," the apostate bit back. He was ricocheting somewhere between a shout and a mean laugh. Howe lowered his arrow satchel and had the audacity to look attacked in the damp air. "I've met some churlish characters in my day – boy, have I – but you top them all. Stomping around like it's some sort of insult I'm actually _here_ in _your_ order! Like you wanted it any more than I did! Like you _earned_ it with your brilliant display of assassinating the commander… which, by the way – in case you needed a reminder – fell flat on its royal face."

"What in the hell do you mean by that? I was just walking! I didn't say a thing to you."

"You act like I've got less right to be here than you and I'm tired of it. I wear the same damn greys, Howe. I've been nothing but nice to you and you have no excuse for tolerating that twiggy Dalish bitch and hating me. I have every call to be here that you do. I drank the rancid blood. I passed all their damned tests, same as you-"

"You are _not_ the same as me. We are not the same in any way," Nathaniel snarled – the bear showing its teeth. Black hair bristled. He gritted and gestured to their slumping courtyard far below, dramatic finger then flinging itself towards Amaranthine's silhouettes in the distant fog. He was yelling, somehow, even at a rasp. "Don't you dare compare yourself to me. Everything I've done has been for the service of something bigger. Something that matters. What have you done with your life? What brought you here but your own damn inability to reap what you've sewn? I don't begrudge you your freedom, mage, but I _do_ take issue when you lack a single loyal bone in your body and you presume to call me your brother. Is that clear enough? Have I laid it all out for you?"

"Perfectly," Anders spat. He felt a familiar outrage tingling painfully up his sinuses – a bolt of indignation that came with templar accusations and punishments undeserved. "Only one question. You think you're so much better than me because _why_, exactly? Your family name used to carry weight and my not having one makes me not worth knowing, I suppose."

"I don't think that," Howe cut in, insisting, severe.

"You do. You really must! Sire handed you a gilded birthright then went and spoiled it all by slaughtering those pesky Couslands. Isn't that a crying shame! It leaves you no richer or better-bred than the rest of us, doesn't it? Suppose if you'd been there, the well-behaved, honor-bound son would've jumped in to join the butchery. No cause too vile to turn your back on, right?" A stuttering scoff. Merciless mockery. A wink of gold at one ear in the cloud-choked sky. "Forget making your own decisions. Forget choosing when and where a battle's worth fighting. Wouldn't be loyal! Not for the _good_ son, the stoic outsider, spat on and anathematized for no reason at all! Not for the one whom faces his appointed sin, grits and bears it as the short-sighted massed demand! Oh, no. Couldn't have anyone comparing YOU to someone like ME. What would Father think of us!"

Nathaniel's wan face darkened – red, purple, rotten-black. "Don't bring my father into this, you callow son-of-a-bitch."

"You act the humble, spurned exile but you're really just another stuck-up prat kicked off his daddy's doorstep and into the cold. Isn't that how it always goes? And everything you do – every loyalty you've shown – it won't matter," he sneered, needing to explain it – determined to teach realities to a deluded sot who thought his dumb devotion would right things somehow. "You know that, don't you? They're going to hate you no matter what you do. You're going to die an outsider for something you had no control over. How does it feel? Welcome to the brave new world, Prince Nate, old boy!" Anders guffawed, sweeping his arm to the fields of mud and shit and decades of decomposed corpses below. He trumpeted a fanfare. His malicious grin flashed in the spent thunderheads. "It's a real bloody hoot out here!"

And then there was a cracking sound from the smithy stall, a vicious pitch in the air, the ranger's nails sinking into his fist – and Howe gave a jagged, compact lunge forward like he might hit Anders. He didn't. The threatening hand halted, curled and dropped before it grew too close to stop. The mage was left wincing, anticipating a blow that fell short of home.

"Maker, you push people," Nathaniel bristled, wheezing through his nose, pinning the menacing fist to one side. "Do you ever shut your mouth? How in the hell has no one killed you yet?"

"I _run_ fast," the apostate seethed.

They faced each other in the chilly morn. Howe folded his arms. Anders glared at him with the righteous indignation of men wronged.

"I don't hate you," Nate puffed, looking cross.

The healer's arched brow spelled skepticism. "You don't?"

"No. You _annoy_ me, if you are so damned intent on hearing it, but I don't hate you. And anyway, you shouldn't care. Why does it matter what anyone thinks of you?" he asked, scoffing. The archer jerked his head towards Varel's soldiers milling below for first drills – their forces were made were made of vengeful native sons and Andraste disciples, both. "They don't control you. They don't get to determine who you are."

"That's funny advice, coming from you-" But Howe didn't let Anders finish the dig.

"You don't know me or my motives. Will you stop assuming you do? It makes you look like a jackass," Howe lashed, hackles up. It wasn't a particularly original reproach, but it made the mage swallow whatever he was going to say. "Not everyone is like you. You think a man can't serve any king, legion or cause if he's not also serving himself. But I'm not out to recover anyone's approval. I do it because I care. Because Amaranthine is my home, and_ I_ care. Maybe you can't understand that when there's nothing in it for me," the scout suggested. "It's who I am. It is how I was raised. You claim Velanna's evil, and you're right, but she knows what she believes. You can trust her to stand behind her word – even if her words are bad ones. I don't… I don't know, with you." Nathaniel frowned as though this critique was chalked up to a personal failing on Anders's behalf. "No one can know with you. Where do you stand? What do you honestly think? You can't expect trust and companionship when you don't make your allegiances plain. And neither of mine are given lightly. Certainly not because you told a few jokes. Talk means nothing to me and it's all you've offered so far. I reserve my judgment and let your actions define you, so I expect the same courtesy."

Kinloch Hold's escape artist was not sure he had allegiances. He looked at Howe with a stunted disregard.

"But if you _ever_ use my father against me again, you nancy-knocking cur," Nate growled, "I'll pitch you straight over this wall."

It was a fair arrangement.

"I just want to confirm one thing," Anders added, watching the ranger straighten his gear. They treaded along towards the watch outposts – a sloppy, precarious catwalk full of fractures and chipped stones. He wiped one metal gauntlet clean upon his sleeve. "You _do_ like me better than Velanna, though, don't you? I mean, she's a psychopath. She murders people. With trees."

"Better than Velanna," Howe granted, slung quiver and bowstring, and moved on down Vigil's crumbling parapet.

"Oh, good. That is restorative! I feel much happier now."

"Be silent, Anders."

"Why? It's not the darkspawn can hear us jabbering way up here. Not like we're apt to give away our posit-"

"You're annoying me, Anders," Nate muttered as they hiked farther up Sentinel Tower.

"Oh. Right. Strong and silent. I can do silent."

_For a_ _moment_.

"So, you know what the high chevalier said to the Crow? He looks him dead in the eye, and he says-"

They spent many wintry mornings atop that moldering wall, Anders and Nathaniel – and by some divine miracle, the latter never threw the former off.

They spent many afternoons trekking about the Knotwood Hills, as well – mage trudging, scout stepping gingerly across dried yellow grass – following their stout leader's dark braids through these rustling bushes. There were evenings slogging through putrid, ink-black bogs in Blackmarsh; there were nights huddling around a weak stove in the Vigil's Keep common hall, toes turning blue in wet socks, Pounce curled on his lap, fingers fumbling cards through moth-eaten mittens. Dawns, too – dreary, early dawns with pink bleeding through stormclouds and staining the ruined colonnades of Kal'Hirol. Their regiment moved at varying speeds, but consistently. Sigrun giggled herself sick at disconcerting intervals. Oghren drank heartily to chase off the climate, unwanted memories and responsibilities he could not balance. Velanna carefully filed her hates in journal pages and murmured promises. Annie-Lynn won affection with stupid gifts and sometimes inadvertently meaningful ones. Nate fletched arrows from saplings to fire with his grandfather's bow. Wind settled in tangled willow leaves and the rightness of Justice's simple, profound logic made Anders secretly wish he was more. More of what, he did not know. But the compulsion was there. A free-wheeling apostate could not empathize with Rendon Howe's grave and duty-bound second son, but perhaps – given time – he could understand that profitless desire to be part of something larger than oneself.

They didn't speak about allegiance again. This was partially because good scouts did not approve of merry chats whilst hiking through forest trails (all Wardens apparently did in the damned Fereldan Greys was hike) and partially because – even on his friendliest days – Nate wasn't exactly someone to idly shoot the breeze with. But it didn't matter so much. They all sat by campfires together when the sun fell behind mountain crags; they all clambered out of lumpy bedrolls when it rose, stiff backs and shivering shoulders, nipped by the wide Hafter range. And, because this was the consequence of being worn-ragged together: they were all made closer for it.

Loyalty came in the form of action, anyway – or so he'd been so crossly told.

Anders knew his act of leaving Vigil's Keep in a daybreak fog said all Nathaniel Howe needed to hear. He did not want to imagine how the ranger reacted to his desertion when they returned from Denerim two weeks later. Yet it was difficult not to think kindly back on his brief time as a Warden – a position given, not sought – but one that saved the mage's life, and perhaps stoked some small ember of self-respect. That uniform sat heavy and sharp, but it meant he belonged to something; not by birth, but by skill and conscious choice. The old navy-and-whites beneath crude iron were a death warrant when darkspawn upshots surged, but they meant honor, wanted or not. Being a Warden ended one's private ambitions – but it was a title that promised much, from a grim path into the deep maw underfoot to home, hearth, and comrades who would defend you with their lives. It was hard not to remember it fondly. The healer did not regret his departure, for Vigil's Keep had shown its darkness when they melted Justice's helm upon a garbage pyre. He would not be used and tossed upon a fire like that – like broken blades. But for all the wrongs of what they'd done, when Anders thought of those Harvestmere afternoons in Wending Wood – when orange sun hit crimson leaves and made them all squint, and everything smelled like pine or apple sap – he could not help but miss his stripèd robes.

Oddly enough, once they got the fight out, Anders and Nathaniel Howe became fair fast friends. Not _best_ friends, but good company – and all the best thereof.

_The best thereof_ was not asking too many questions or visiting in past mistakes; understanding silence but not being obligated to pry it open; playing pranks and getting beaten up for it; sitting quietly side-by-side in those cold crabgrass Hills, waiting for Annie to make sense of her damned maps, until Anders punched Nate in the ribcage for brooding and was shoved off their shared stump onto his rear. He'd trip the scout's ankles with his stave, fill his sleeping satchel with rocks, switch his coffee with watery mud then cackle when Nathaniel'd realize and spit it out. No need to worry overmuch about death threats. The mage had jackrabbit legs and was faster than Howe, but Howe was thrice as mean – and when he caught Anders, would gladly split his lip or blacken an eye. They'd spend the rest of the day irritated at one another (and one of them stopping up a bloody nose), but it was all worth it. Fighting with a fellow reluctant Warden in the face of certain disaster felt oddly like winding back to Lake Calenhad, and to a handful of friends left on azure shores so long ago. It was all good fun in the end. Not much else was.

Friendship did not make the danger smaller or the Blight less wretched; but as had a pack of whispering apprentices in Kinloch Hold, it did make this cold-blooded fort feel like less of a prison cell.

Anders remembered the very afternoon it occurred to him that – if nothing changed – he would die in this hawkish, clinking, too-weighty Warden coat. It was late Kingsway in rocky watershed beneath a dry grey sky. The apostate was scrambling along a shallow riverbank, its stream receded to show tree limbs and snapping turtle tracks, next to Annie-Lynn; Justice blazed their trail, and Nathaniel picked his way carefully in the rear guard. He was telling a ridiculous story about something. Now he can't remember what.

"_You're lying," _Nate griped behind him, wading through the cattail reeds.

"Am not," Anders insisted, heel crunching a catfish skeleton leftover from drought. "Every word is true! And we truly thought it might work. In fact, I'm sure of it. If we'd just rotated the table a little farther left…"

"He's lying," Brosca confirmed.

"I'm not, I swear! Maker, ye of little faith. You wound me with your hasty conclusions. Look, I'll show you. Look. I was holding it right out like this-"

Before he could lift his staff, something crashed from a nearby treeline and into the healer's back so hard Anders would've sworn every vertebra shattered… had he been capable of any coherent thoughts at all.

Ground ripped away from his feet. Blackness flashed any semblance of vision away. Something smelled of hateful magic and granite. A sulfur taste eked up his nose and burned the man's sinuses, searing tear ducts – familiar power, but grossly perverted: darkspawn mana. There was no breathing, no reaction, and no sound save a bleary ringing that filled up his skull and knocked equilibrium to hell. He was not aware how far the blow had sent him. His body was tossed airborne and flung far until yellow hair and belt buckles disappeared below the edge of the ravine.

When Anders sat up – who knows how long later? – Nathaniel was furiously shaking his collar, the scout's slate pupils glinting horror and dismay.

"God damn it," Howe shouted, more from relief than anger at how the bleary apostate's hand shoved right in his face. He'd sported two black eyes and a scraped, bloody chin. Copper glinted wildly in wide whites that flicked about, completely clueless as to how battered their surroundings looked. His ponytail could have been black for all the grime. They were sitting one foot of sluggish water; Nate kneeling, the stricken mage hauled halfway up by the two fists in his jacket neck. He'd hit soil and spun to a stop in the parched, stagnant ditch.

They started at each other for a panicked, confused moment.

"_Fff_!" Anders turned a cheek and spit out earthy liquid, gagging, aghast. Nathaniel let him go. "_Pfft_! Ack! I think I just swallowed pond scum!"

The archer looked at him mutely and stood up. Their walloped healer, disgusted and sputtering, was currently trying to rub his tongue clean with muddy fingers. He was, for all their purposes, unharmed. "_Anders_," Nate exhaled, disbelieving, and shook his head.

"Sparkle-fingers is still kickin,' then, eh?" Annie shouted from the bank. She wiped her dagger in the grass, ebony hair knots splattered with blood, stout frame firm. Justice was pulling his bastard sword from a withered Emissary's necrotic, exploded chest. "Good! Saves me a mess of trouble. Was worried we'd be thrown off schedule on account of a burial…"

"Why, _thank you_, Commander. Your concern is touching!" Anders hollered, moping with filthy face and sopping clothes. She was already trundling away to collect the spoils, Duster born-and-bred. He spluttered a final time for effect. The runaway's socks were soaked inside his boots. His hair dripped, bedraggled; there was a distinct smell of algae already sinking into the leathers, and gauntlets leaked with every knuckle twitch. "Ugh. My back. Where the hell did that thing even come from…? Now I've got water trapped in my ear canals. I think there's weeds stuck in my teeth. I'm never going to get this out of my…"

He looked up at Howe, sand plastering one half of himself, and suddenly something clicked.

The mage grinned through his dirt mask. "You were _worried_," he sung out, a sass as much as a victory march. "About _me_."

Nathaniel's glare was homicidal.

"You were," Anders insisted, and jabbed a pointer finger towards the scout's nose. "_You_ don't want me to _die_. Because you LIKE me."

"You caught a Stonefist to the Maker-damned spine," Nate began to snarl, but was cut off before he could finish.

"Ah. Just admit it. You like me," the drenched Warden said. He sighed patiently. He held a palm flat in the air. "You _like_ me and you'd _cry_ if I _died_. You'd cry like a sad, crying little girl. You'd be heartbroken. Shattered, really. You'd stand over my casket and read out: 'Here lies Serrah Anders, the _best_ friend I have ever had – who was a little slow to duck today, but still an all-around excellent compatriot – and the funniest, cleverest, best-dressed, most likeable apostate Thedas has ever-"

The 'shattered' scout kicked his boot sole against Anders's chest, splashing him rudely back down beneath twelve inches of muck, and stormed off. The mage came up sputtering anew.

So Annie's humble troupe clambered up, out, and trudged on – with a reminder of mortality in the way their healer limped towards home.

Anders walked quietly for the sting in his hip. This was hardly the first time he'd toed too close to those hot lines of hell. It couldn't be helped. Karl had been right when he'd warned that an apostate's life was a race with no end but that _final_ one; you knew that any corner might be your last, no matter how quick or crafty your steps had been. This runner did not like to think about it overmuch. Humor had always been the finest coping strategy for him; he focused on survival, and did his best to shrug off that chill of being _finite_. But as they moved back to the ominous shadow of Vigil's Keep, jokes had shriveled faster than damp leather cuffs. He watched the towers rise from evergreen spines, ignoring ragged bolts of pain, disturbed beyond the damage done.

Anders wrung swamp water from his jerkin sleeves and cast a critical glance at where the ranger hiked ahead. "You know, I had to think about it a bit…" He frowned. "But we're chums, aren't we?"

"_You are my brother," _Howe said; it was enough explanation for all.

They had never wanted to be Wardens.

If nothing changed, then they would die Wardens – but perhaps a quick and fated death was better than a death alone.

* * *

In Red Candle Clinic, Merrill sat next to Anders beneath a ragged blanket and loyalty she needed to believe.

The mage didn't answer. Instead, one arm slug out, wrapped around her narrow shoulders, and clasped five fingers into the old cloth.

"Not on your life, crazy," he said, and pulled her face into his feathered coat.


	14. Breakwater

**Breakwater**

Two days after the hurricane stopped – and frightened sunlight began to push through still-lingering storm clouds – Anders finally dared a peek into Hightown again.

It was not quite the same mess up here, scattered among these noble boulevards, that hung dripping levels below in Darktown. Wind left the under-city distraught with ragged, detached tarp walls; in Kirkwall proper, it left seaweed stuck to stone balustrades. Their sewer stench was rotted fish, overflow, ammonia; above, it was mostly salt and sodden harbors. There'd been a terrifying moment three nights ago when briny water sluiced in beneath Red Candle Clinic's door – when a wave reared higher than the safety posts and smashed foam inside their block – but it only flooded a few nobles' cellars. Chilly, saline breeze helped scour away sandy mud beneath a wet grey sky. Elven roustabouts from the dockside were already heaving boat debris away for sour quartermasters forced to shell out extra coin. While boards rattled off Darktown's hinges – shutters drenched, burlap torn down, windows broken out of every house that hadn't nailed them over – in Hightown, driftwood and closed shopfronts were the foremost inconveniences. Their children hopscotched through puddles while ragamuffins below picked live urchins off the concrete, fingers careful, lest they earn a toxic sting.

Kirkwall's main bazaar was still clear cobblestones, but the Lowtown border market managed to set up a few supply stalls this morning. Pawners handed out basic necessities, repair tools and refreshments for winded laborers. Most of this equipment was charity from City Hall, but the guardsmen themselves were largely preoccupied elsewhere – keeping brats off slippery bulwarks, hauling dead horses from neighboring farms, eyeballing crates of personal belongings as rich denizens sorted out their damaged sheds. Anders couldn't really complain about a lack of lawmen skulking about, though. He'd gathered a complimentary bundle of fresh wood, tacks, hammers and paint from Lirene ("Glad you didn't rinse off with the tide!" she'd cried and slapped his back), stacked them all into an orange crate, then staggered back the way he'd come. Narrow stairs took him up before leading down to the dregs again. Algae clung to each step in a very precarious fashion; someone had tossed down pebbles to traction slippery concrete, but the healer's boots squelched nevertheless. He wrinkled his nose.

"_Nigh a full week stranded inside a rickety building with leaking walls, and _this_ unsettles you?"_

"It doesn't _unsettle_ me," Anders muttered, half-aware he was speaking aloud. There was enough ruckus milling about the souk that no one heard him, anyway; a man carting logs would've knocked the apostate flat had he not ducked, birch bark swinging five inches from his nose. Ocean spray and sweat in equal portions began to dot both temples, sticking hair strands, tickling mercilessly. "It's _slippery_. And this box is ungainly. Heavy, too – and I've still got to find Elegant upstairs for ink," he pouted.

"_Indeed. I wish you would take my advice to improve your musculature seriously."_

"I wish your mouth had rusted shut," Anders snapped. Before Justice could retort with something boring about the physical impossibility of that statement, the mage hiked on, vigor suddenly renewed.

He'd just emerged at the stairwell summit again, trying not to teeter, when a familiar shock of red caught the mage's eye.

They were a tidy group beneath Hightown's heavy air: religiously clean Sebastian Vael, armor replaced by a tunic of even crisper white; two smooth-faced aristocrats he did not recognize, one in skirts and the other slacks; Mistress Amell, standing with back facing him across this slick stone square. The blood color of her coat stood stark and recognizable beneath a maudlin, smoky sky, screen of dark brunette pulled into a tight knot. And if not for either of them, you could still pick Cala out from the way she comported herself – a stance stronger than typical gentry, arms crossed, weight placed on one leather boot. She'd been looking mildly between the foppish black-haired boy and blonde dame, whom appeared to be locked in some mundane sort of argument. Vael listened with his usual bland politeness. The four of them had gathered outside a slumping, rain-battered minstrel gazebo to chat; it was quite possible they'd already been loitering there when he'd passed by the first time, but destitute doctors didn't tend to scan flocked nobles for their friends very often.

Anders didn't particularly want to shoot the breeze with a repurposed fruit box full of building tools in both hands. He ducked his head, decided finding Elegant wasn't worth it, and shuffled to leave the bazaar.

"_It not it strange behavior to avoid one's friends?"_ Justice asked, and his host had an odd inkling that lecturing tin can just kicked both plated heels smugly onto a metaphorical tabletop.

'_I suppose you'd know if you ever had any,' _the mage shot back, a cruel jibe, but one that hardly affected sanctimonious spirits. He had much more important chores on his daily list, anyway. Patching up Red Candle was priority number one, but Anders also had yet to check in on Merrill (who'd dashed back to her modest home this morning) and make the usual healer rounds. No doubt harsh winds, saturated walls and cold seawater would have him giving away most of the medicine stores in minutes. _Then_ he'd have to go traipsing about the woods to forage fresh components, clambering over downed trees, toting a closetful of weeds home… not to mention work his arms sore pestling elfroot into juice…

Wouldn't you know it? Sebastian, that damned pony, spotted him two steps in and sounded the alert.

Anders lifted his hand in a gesture more defensive than it was welcoming; the healer looked away at the same instant he waved, looking curlike, and hurried on. Hopefully they'd just let him pass unmolested. Hightown's echoing, water-stained square was of considerable size – a gaggle of young lordlings oughtn't be seen shouting like rabble across the way, hands cupped around mouths – much less at some ragged apostate hauling repair gear about. To tell true, he wasn't keen on being spotted rubbing elbows with that lot, either. Kirkwall's slums were a place fueled by rumors, anxiety and wanting self-worth, an environment where trust was hard-earned and easily fractured. Not to mention that a free mage stuck out like beardless Carta dwarves in all this latticework and carnival tarp. _There_ were two parties Meredith's skirted hounds loved just about equally… matter of fact, considering the ruckus this weather caused, it might be a good idea to-

Someone's hand – hard and compact – hit his arm and half-steered, half-yanked the abomination about-face.

"Anders!" Hawke yelped – yelped being the only word for it, really. Mist and cloud cover shadowed the progressively paler face. She looked excited by the general ruckus around her and a touch bewildered by it. "Didn't you see me?"

"Oh. Well, yes, sort of…" He fumbled with the sagging crate. Nails jingled inside with the surprise of being forcibly about-faced; loose tacks rolled every which way. The slightly winded Fereldan hardly noticed. Murky eyes glinted cordially at him over slatted wood; her short chin just cleared the upper ridge, walnut locks pinned neatly around highland cheekbones and that lowborn scar. "But-"

"Glad to find you still in one piece after that storm," she babbled, plowing right past whatever excuse the uncomfortable mage might've given. Movement flickered in the shallows of this woman's stare; nobility had settled upon the restored Amells in earnest, now, made manifest by a new spryness of poise and clear jut to her words. Titles and court company could not, however, stamp out the assuredness of movement – sharp brow, bold presence, masculine stride that remained a bit too heavy for her build – nor could they snuff the lingering amazement at having been caught up in a shrew grandmother's glorious bloodline. She looked particularly enthused by what a great mess this hurricane had left behind: tons of seawater, buckets of broken clamshells and beached fish, one sturdy kick to the hornet's nest of Kirkwall. "Got nasty during those last few nights, didn't it? Shipping Master says the marina damage is the worst in ten years. Certainly the worst since I've been here! Heard they closed every one of the harbor breaches."

"Yeah, don't have to tell me so! Where do you imagine all that backup goes?" Anders, brow arched, prompted. Hers furrowed on cue. He was painfully aware of the immaculate company milling a stone's throw away. "Looks like a heard of brontos stampeded straight through my alley. Ripped breakers clean off the boardwalks. All the canvas torn down. Planks, tarp, lanterns… you name it. Gallons of salt flushed right into my backyard, I swear. My metaphorical backyard, anyway. Everything just completely smashed." The crate gave a sullen rattle-and-jank at Darktown's rambling damage account. Imagination refused to stay put and his mouth wouldn't shut. "All my hypothetical petunias…"

"I imagine. We were concerned about you. Got word the Alienage flooded, but that it was mostly-" Cala caught the other end of his tool box. Stout hands hefted the weight with little effort. "Did you hear about the wharf smashing? Ship hurled up and spat down right on that bloody dock! Still fishing bits of the bow out."

"Oh, I see! So _that's_ why there was a giant wooden breast sticking out of the schoolhouse roof."

Bizarreness twisted her face into an odd frown, stuck between scandal and humor. "That's horrid."

"I'm joking," he reassured. Maker bless Hawke's dead sense of humor, the corner of her that never developed; it had to be brushed off or directly attacked. "I mean – _hmm_ – I think I am. I haven't exactly been scrounging for chunks of mermaid. And, you know-"

"Other things to do. I know. Aveline's about drowning in clean-up duties. Still, you can't be sure. I wonder if anyone will come looking for their figurehead. We've already had people stop by our street hunting down garden décor. Our neighbors next door had an Andraste hand statue sail through their bed chamber window. Have you-"

"No hand statues – that's the upside of Darktown," Anders cut in, almost meaning it, trying not to titter at how true that seemed. "No deadly meditation stones or escaped shrubberies. But I think a free-flying dolphin broke my door knocker."

True horror descended upon that severe northerner face. "You're-"

"-joking."

It must've looked strange – two chattering Wallers, Cala in her pretentious lord's jacket and Anders in worn crow-feather, each on the other side of a sad hauling crate – talking too fast and saying too little. There was awkwardness in that she simply did not seem to realize how awkward this meeting ought to be. Perhaps it was merely the steely, oblivious way Hawke addressed her world, tones cast in narrow blacks and whites; perhaps it was good old Fereldan brusqueness, or perhaps simple agitation over this dwindling storm. Did it really matter which? The mage felt uneven in his nervous discomfiture around her, which only made the fidgeting and fast-talking worse. Furthermore, it was difficult to ascertain if aristocratic status made this woman more or less dangerous to converse with in public. She was unschooled, yes, unglamorous, with manners and face offensive to the delicate Orlesian tastes woven strong into Marcher history. But she was her family's head. Meredith could not openly damage her, perhaps – not without due cause. Still, suspicious connections could pan out poorly for either of them. The guise of normalcy had been scrubbed from him long ago, but it was not clear if anyone _knew_ about Cala's first inheritance, an unwanted gift from a dead father. Well – no one beyond a penniless healer, a syndicate story-teller, and Ser Carver Hawke.

She was still prattling on in that brisk, oddly childish way. "It wasn't so bad up top besides the lightning. Rain kept anything from catching afire, of course. Our basement's dampened. And _Mother_." Her eyes widened – conspiratorial, exasperated. This frank expression – and the abrupt, no-pretense way Cala had righted his crate – were welcome reminders of that ragged refugee girl she'd been but months ago. "Saw the water leak – just an inch; not a flood – and carried on like you wouldn't _believe_, mage. Damned near thought we'd wash away. You'd think it never stormed in the thrice-damned Bannorn. We'll probably get mold, but I'm just relieved the shingles held."

"Amell!" The summons came from her group. That raven-haired lad with a waifish, watery face was looking impatiently in their direction, silk sleeves rumpled in the heavy breeze. It was unclear whether Cala had not heard him or simply didn't care to respond.

"Do you want to come by the house later?" she asked, looking happily at him. "Varric's dropping over for dinner. I'm sure Mother won't mind one more."

Behind her, the impatient noble boy appeared unsure of what to do with himself; Sebastian Vael chatted offhanded with their female companion, whose half-mast Orlesian eyes communicated mild interest. She was curling a twirl of caramel hair round her finger. The one who'd called out adjusted his weight between feet. They directed no attentions towards the healer, waiting on their party member, but there was a significant amount of expectation in those six eyes. He wasn't sure how Hawke could handle them all staring at the back of her head. _'If they only peer a little harder, there's a real risk of explosion…' _

"_What! You suspect these nobles are casting dark magicks at the woman's-"_

'_Haven't you learned how to take my jokes _yet?_' _Anders wondered, shushed Justice's sudden righteous concern, and had to suppress a sigh.

"Thanks, but I probably shouldn't." It was a flimsy excuse; he couldn't claim dining at the Amell Estate sounded enjoyable, but personal reasons didn't factor. The decorated group standing beyond Hawke caused this renegade mage justifiable unease. There was a moment of real disappointment on Cala's face as those strong lines straightened themselves. "A lot left to be done, you know."

Her expression struggled to correct itself. Optimism pushed forward in the form of a weak grin, but she'd always been a terrible liar. "Right to work, then? Might as well let everything dry off. It could shower again."

"Well, we had a little damage," he confessed – on the off-chance she hadn't deduced as much from the heavy box of tools they were currently balancing between them. "Nothing that can't be patched, though. Nice thing about Darktown – smash it up as much as you like, stick everything back together, and it still looks good as new."

"Amell!" Hands cupped around mouth, looking pasty and overeager, the man shouted out again. His clear voice echoed over salted tiles with little strength but much entitlement. "We're heading to the quay!"

"I hear," she hollered back, dark, dark locks twisting to face Anders, waving them down. He slumped forward when her hands unexpectedly dropped out from beneath the carrying crate. "A minute, Saemus!"

There was a brief silence as everyone seemed to shuffle themselves out.

"Stay for awhile, then," she suggested, amiable as ever, acting like nothing had changed.

The apostate winced. "You're busy."

A snort and throaty chuckle was his answer. "Hardly," Hawke dismissed, flicking one hand. There was a world of proletarian perspective wrapped up in that gesture, even as the brave signet ring flashed on her thumb. "Come talk with us."

His wince caught on a tooth and became both grimace and smile – hesitant, not unkind, but clearly unaccommodating. "I can't see that ending particularly well."

"What? Why?" Cala's odd smile conveyed she did not realize his meaning. Her arms crossed loosely over a wrinkled tunic, hip cocked. "Is it Vael? Is it because he preaches? I have to tell you: say what you will about Sebastian – he's actually not a terrible conversationalist, once you're past the holy proverbs. None of them are completely unbearable. Saemus is a bit of a limp wrist, to be sure, and Joyce du Puis could learn a few manners, but they're all-"

There was only another second of confusion before the inequity hit.

Hawke's face fell.

"Oh," she said, brow denting, murky eyes both sober and embarrassed. It was the stumble of a woman forced to recognize that her accomplishments had halved her life neatly into two: what came after being wealthy, and what came before. There were well-pressed gentlepeople loitering on one end of this soaking square and one tattered healer on the other, toting a carton full of tacks and glues. They were two worlds that could not meet. In that instant, it occurred to Hightown's new family head why old friends had become so scarce of late – dawned upon her where sacrifices had been, almost unwittingly, made. It seemed like something sharp had barbed her in the throat. "_Oh._ Yes, I… I didn't think… I wasn't thinking. Sorry. I understand."

"Maybe I'll see you around the market sometime," he offered, a half-hearted piece of consolation. Cala nodded – it was a sharp, distant reply. The Fereldan's frown was all her own.

Suddenly there was nothing to say. Except: _"Goodbye, take care."_ Her hand was short and cold when it moved to shake his and found none free. They laughed clumsily about it. They tried to navigate some sort of farewell. Hawke had to settle for giving his forearm wrap a quick, artless pat, almost like one might tap a child's mop. And with that hurried sentiment, she about-faced – militant in response to feeling troubled – and rejoined her companions, and they all left. Cala did not glance back to wave or toss another dinner invitation. Neither Saemus nor Joyce du Puis bothered to ask. Sebastian dipped a genial, infuriating bow. They'd move on towards the waterside with that.

"_You have upset her."_

Anders watched them walk away, a small pack of nobility in a limping city, hustled by the girl in that cardinal red coat. He flashed a look that no one saw. _'Whatever would I do without your incredible insights, Justice? It's astonishing I ever made it this far without you. Inexplicable, really. Boggles the mind.' _

Suspecting he was being poked fun at, the spirit sulked, and clanked inside his host's head all the way down that central stair.

Though the mage appreciated a moment of quiet amidst all this commotion and persistent dripping, Anders couldn't say he enjoyed enlightening Cala about her current station. Hawke had an odd bone of naiveté for all her discipline and offhandedness. It was understandable for someone who had never waded social classes – Lothering was a spit of a town, less than a puddle, divided between beat farmers and holy folk – but that made the practical implications of "decency" no easier to discuss. You chose your company carefully in Kirkwall or you did not fraternize at all. Forget for a moment which one of them stood to lose more ground; lopsided friendships didn't generally do very well in this city segmented by tiers.

Merrill was wrong about many things, but about this she had been right: it didn't make much sense for Hightown nobles to associate with Darktown hideaways.

The healer descended back to his lot, ducking fallen ropes and sopping flaps of canvas where coarse sea sun shone through, crate clinking. It was humid and familiar down here. Cool wind rolled off the water, comforting against the sting of salt, rippling in shady areas. Doors creaked on loose hinges to welcome fresh air. True – there was much to be done, many worried faces, dozens of bedraggled citizens fretting over holes torn in their rooftops. But beneath the discord of it all, Anders had begun to see a strange harmony. Boat boards may have washed ashore down below, but the normal sounds of Kirkwall's harbor were already returning: gulls, workers, chatty fishermen, morning bells. Radishes cooked on ember grills. Children picked their way carefully among broken glass, looking for squirming conchs or colorful snails stuck to tarp. It was a perseverance, quiet and humble, that did not exist in the districts overhead; here the process of rebuilding was not about next season's economy, but homes.

You could see life returning in these short hours since the gales waned. Osan was out in force, commanding his neighbors with great folded arms, overseeing wood-chopping to fix the broken rafters. Two of Evelina's younger boys were hollered at as they skirted recklessly by. Abbey, Cedany and Terrowin had gathered outside the clinic block, elbows hanging over banisters, squinting silently – girls again instead of prostitutes – grateful to feel daylight on their faces again. They smiled briefly at Anders as the mage walked by. And – for all the damage done and distance made between new friends – he was oddly content. This hidden borough beneath the glister and shine of Kirkwall was grim, to be sure; joy became a rare and precious find amidst wretchedness, hardly the commodity those simpering noble markets made it. But it was real. Darktown was genuine and unpampered. And it was, in some strange way, his – a hovel made into a hospital.

Anders was not accustomed to picking up messes, whether the messes his own or those great earthly events beyond a single man's control. Easier to leave them and move on. Escaping the Circle made nomadic existence both appealing and necessary, a selfish lifestyle that never bothered him much before. It was not as though he had no compassion; however shallow his bravery reserves and however foul or craven his past deeds, a good heart was a prerequisite for becoming a healer. It was not as though Anders did not have any regrets or enduring doubts about his failings, because "being an opportunist" didn't erase every shame. It was simply that, due to rootlessness and his own self-investment, the mage never really _rebuilt_ anything. He had no compelling reason to stay and piece together disaster zones. He never even thought about what that might entail.

It felt… good, actually.

Anders realized it might have seemed – well, _sick_ was the only word that came to mind – taking pleasure in all this destruction while single mothers stood outside their gutted tenements, orphans ate kelp and rotten herrings were sloughed over the drops by broom sweeps. Justice would just have to trust that he didn't mean it that way. There was nothing particularly thrilling or loyalty-inspiring about a bunch of driftwood piled outside his clinic door, to be sure. This good feeling wasn't personal relief after a disaster – building and body intact – while others surveyed their losses. It was a grounding sort of goodness, sincere and simple. Perhaps it was merely having a home to rebuild.

"_I understand what you meant, Anders."_

Maybe he could eventually come understand what Amaranthine had been to Nate; much as it scorned the Howe legacy, that city had been his birthplace, anchor and (though Anders hated this word) duty. It was a responsibility he adopted willingly – not because he was a deluded noble, an exile-in-denial – but because it came as naturally as walking through the wet highland moors at the end of every day. There were some things you gave up for the sake of being yourself – warmth, stability, friends left to sink or swim. But this is not something the man was sure he could. His courage had yet to really be tested in Kirkwall, and perhaps freedom would always mean more than a home to him, but Anders was not about to carelessly abandon this small niche he had cut for himself. That would be a decision made with time, hesitation and honest regret. He was not about to off and leave just because storm winds howled at these city walls, at least. Not because Meredith Stannard and her templars horned their bigotry about with axes instead of chains. And not for the friendship of a family of Hawkes.

"_Watch where you place your feet, mage,"_ Justice reminded him, warning about all this broken glass, but It felt more like his quiet acknowledgement of _I'm proud of you_.

Before Anders could reach his warehouse doors, now propped open again after many days bolted shut, Tomwise caught him. The shifty elf, slowed by that persistent limp of his, informed their resident surgeon he was needed down by the Overlook. It was a popular Darktown fishing spot, less of an _overlook_ and more a ragged patio of wood and stone forking over the Amaranthine shallows. Bored laborers would set out makeshift poles crafted from twine and broomsticks; feuding lovers or bragging adolescents threatened to jump off into a wave; adventurous children rappelled over the rails (though that was generally discouraged). Anders's very pessimistic first thought was that the whole rickety foundation had collapsed and been swept halfway to Orlais, leaving battered bodies in a heap below. Tomwise assured him that wasn't the case, but you learned to always expect the worst as an apostate, even if you did so with a smile.

"Nothing that dramatic," the ex-assassin informed him, picking splinters from one spindly hand. Tomwise worked at what he could. You had to wonder who those hands had killed in years past – diplomats, blueblood stock or petty enemies? – but Anders had the personal experience to know better than asking. No reason to start conversations of that nature with quiet neighbors or with casual friends, and this beady-eyed alchemist was both. "Next door block just needs help moving some debris that's too large to lift. Cement support burst its hinges, I suppose. Can't cut it. Evelina's already gone to see but says she'd prefer to wait for an extra hand." A pause. "That's one horrific imagination you've got there, though. My compliments. "

"Thank you; I've worked very hard on it," the mage joked. (Mostly.) "Guess I'll be heading right over, then."

"A good idea – before Smithton gets wind of this and snaps his back trying to haul a ton of limestone alone. I'll direct traffic from the clinic for you."

Anders was not sure how either one of them had inferred about the other's history – for they had shared very few specifics – but somehow, both had. Almost instantly, too. It might have seemed like a rivalry-in-motion, poison-brewer and doctor, both hidden amongst the filth of Darktown with their own quiet aspirations of helping. But cooperation certainly made management easier. Tomwise kept his nightshade out of the alleyways and the mage patched up rare accidents without crying _Watch_.

Anders was not yet at a place where he recognized his commitment to Kirkwall as repentance, but that did not matter so much. Redemption was in gestures, not speeches; as a somber Warden from the last promise he'd left said, _let your actions define you_. Maybe contrite refugees simply flocked to the same dark spots.

In the business of evil deeds and inglorious pasts, it was always who you would never expect, wasn't it? – runaway healer and the elf with the dopey ears.

En route to the Overlook, Anders caught Walter by a tunic scruff and handed his supply box over, instructing him to leave it at Red Candle. (A joke name by this hour, since there was neither hide nor hair of candle or lantern to be found at the moment.) He then headed over to confirm Tomwise's story: lo and behold, one menacing colonnade had buckled its supports and crunched a foot into these already questionable floorboards. It had taken out most of the outcropping's rails after smacking several shoe-sized holes straight through to the green, dirty sea lapping foam and rubble beneath. A fair crowd had already gathered to discuss fixing it and to gawk.

True to the elf's word, Evelina was already standing a few yards away, gaunt arms crossed as she frowned at this disarray. "Fine start to the day, isn't it?" the woman gruffed, thin mouth twisting into an unhappy expression. Her skirts were battered more so than usual, saltwater clinging to frayed edges, auburn hair in fringes. Bright rays shone callously into their eyes, making the refugee peer through her mop of bangs. She looked not to have really slept in several days. This in mind, there was no idle catching-up or good mornings to exchange. "Suppose this one's on you and me, then."

"Better scare off the bystanders first. How about a deftly-placed Firestorm?" Anders suggested, attempting to lighten the mood. His humor failed. A bright pink starfish had stickered onto a bit of cement and was currently crawling its way upwards. He picked it off and dropped the mindless creature down to the ocean below. A tiny, tiny soul – easy sympathies that Justice didn't have time for, but Anders still believed in.

"We're not going to lose hold of it," she dismissed, more so a reassurance than a fact. "It's been a few years, but I'm as much of a force mage as I ever was. And I wasn't no slouch. Could've handled it myself, I think, but I didn't fancy a nosebleed before noon. How's your telekinesis?"

The healer considered it. "Passable if I'm lucky."

"It'll have to do. ALL YOU: BETTER STAND BACK," Evelina shouted – then with little more warning and no further delay, drew both knotty hands back, cupped them into air-claws, and let fly a Stone Fist directly into the pillar's crumbling center. Shale exploded. Thick dust erupted. There was a menacing, overloud _CRACK_ as the thing split messily in two. Through the leftover fog, you could hear bare, startled footsteps running away.

When the mist settled, Anders and Evelina were plastered head-to-toe in grey. They squinted. He choked. Rock powder puffed away from a mop of yellow hair and made the other apostate's eyebrows disappear completely.

"Subtle," he observed, and she squinted at him with narrow, soot-creased eyes.

Two more impact spells from her and a pot of fresh water from the closest homestead's wife later, they had split that barricade into manageable chunks. Four slabs lay waiting in broken piddocks and moss. A few more wooden boards fell away from their foundations in the process, too, making them hop over gaps in the floor. Evelina, feeling those telltale migraine flicks of mental exertion, caught her breath while Anders tried his best (futilely) not to look taxed by the weak telekinesis he channeled. His knees began to grow sore with the weight pressing down upon his mind. Justice reminded him he was an elementalist, not a force-caster. His host gave a half-hearted thanks.

One way or another, alternating efforts, they got the wreckage cleared. Evelina remarked that this particular corner of Darktown barely looked any better-off without the colonnade than with it, but you took triumphs where they came. He cut messy bandages from someone's lost curtain to make a_ Caution – Watch Your Step_ sign. She thumped the front of his coat and sent dust wafting off it. They bid each other goodbye with a crude templar joke and a tired _see you in a bit_. Everything was too close down here for real farewells; what you could not fix could be swept away or kicked into the sea.

The grim storm-day sun had blushed to orange then evening rouge by the time Anders was walking back to Red Candle Clinic, gravel squeezed in his boot soles, breeze damp and heavy. Light was a frail warmth at the mage's back. Rain clouds still threatened at the far horizon; their black predecessors, however, were now stampeding over Sundermount, casting gloom on pale mountain face. You could smell more weather in the water. The waves looked worn-out as they rolled into shore, crests darkened by great patches of dulse ripped away. Clusters of debris and dead fish made menacing monster shapes beneath the surface. You could only wait on sailors' bodies to come tumbling in over the course of another week.

There was still an incredible amount of work to do before nightfall. He'd spend an hour or two nailing new planks over the compromised patches in his building and call it a day – best to just worry about repainting tomorrow. There would doubtless be several pulled hamstrings or dislocated shoulders to keep him busy between now and then. You know, that in mind, it was nice to have a moment for himself… now that these scraggy streets began emptying of labor recruits, leaving a dwindling crowd mostly made of the disheveled homeless and a handful of loitering peasants. Tattered canvass flapped soothingly in low air.

Anders shoved one hand in a pocket and sighed as the hospital door came into view, a few waiting, people-shaped shadows moving behind it. The other he ran along a wet banister, collecting droplets in his palms. It was getting cooler quickly. Hopefully the temperature change wouldn't cause an unseasonal frost, killing all the-

Someone unsavory is standing behind him, aren't they?

The apostate turned around at Justice's urging and was promptly face-to-face with a lanky-looking vagrant, shoulders hunkered, holding a knife.

"Oh, you're kidding me," the mage whined. "Can't even wait till the ground dries off? I mean, the sun is still out, and-"

It was a decent attempt, but street-side ruffians who took advantage of natural disasters and poked daggers at doctors were notoriously hard to convince. The sandy-haired boy cut him off with an overdramatic, sloppy jerk of his blade. It looked like a makeshift kukri, and his tunic pouches were jingling with what could only have been stolen currency. "Turn out your pockets," the boy barked, trying his best to menace with a ferretish face. "Hand over whatever you've got, an' you can leave. But if you call for help, I swear I'll…" He was almost recognizable – some cutpurse or pimple-faced beggar from the Lowtown market district, perhaps?

Not that familiarity really mattered at present. Anders remembered the hand clenched in his robe pocket, probably looking suspiciously full of coins right about now. The man might have been wafting dust, but snowy feathers on his outfit and a confident stride marked him as a well-to-do of this wretched city quarter. That thought could've made Justice laugh if he wasn't busy preparing to blast this hostile into a glade.

Not particularly wanting to light the street afire over a misguided mugging, Anders pulled both pockets inside-out – completely empty – and gave the robber a flat look. "Here they are. You see? Are you satisfied?"

He imagined anyone who spent a great deal of time in Darktown wouldn't have bothered a legitimate maleficar like this, so at least there was the comforting observation that not every thug in Kirkwall knew who he was. Not that it provided much consolation with a fishing knife being jabbed in the direction of his jugular. Varric paid monthly Carta protection fees so that Red Candle was left well enough alone, but nevertheless one did have to occasionally deal with straggling purse-takers. It was simply a main symptom of urban life; it couldn't be helped. The healer squinted in a feeble display of passivity that went ignored. His assailant frowned angrily, almost to himself – a conniving child with this latest scheme foiled.

"You got to have something," he protested, cheekbone hues nearing embarrassed. The lad tried to compensate for his mistake by twisting into a fiercer expression. He waved a bony hand. "C'mon, I know you have something. Give it over and you won't get cut. What about…" Eyes scanned him over, searching for golden buttons, imported fabrics or places where money might be stashed. "What about that clasp there?" was the brigand's helpful suggestion, pointed chin snapping towards the brass chain of his outer coat.

"_Really_?" Anders was about to say, and had just given serious consideration to Justice's sage suggestion of "broil this shameless thief" when another interruption sprung out from behind.

Well – roared, more like it.

"HEY, LUCKY – YOU CLEAR THE HELL OUT, OR I'LL DRAG MY HOBBLED LEG OVER THERE, I WILL, AND MAKER AS MY WITNESS I'LL BEAT YOU TO GODDAMN DEATH WITH IT!"

The shout had come from just outside his clinic door, throaty and vicious enough to shower spit across the floorboards. Sounded more like a leashed pit dog had lunged out and growled it than any respectable vigilante, but these words – or was it that hoarse, ragged voice? – sent this greenhorn troublemaker wheeling backwards. He scattered off somewhere into Darktown before Anders could laugh or whirl around to see who'd saved him.

Except he could hardly feel much safer for it – not really – because the woman standing aggressively in Red Candle's threshold was less of a watchman and more of an obvious pirate.

In his wilder years, this free-spirited mage had been heckled many a time for sporting what some perceived as "too damned much jewelry" for a meek occupation like healer. They expected him to be mousy, self-effacing and contrite – to be soft-spoken, monotonous, wear a lot of brown – as was in fashion for professionals whose job description involved an incredible deal of death. Metals did not mesh well with this traditional image, particularly when they were decorative. Families of sick children or wounded soldiers preferred their attendants to be focused on suffering at the expense of all personal matters. So went popular opinion, at any rate… and given how ragged this occupation could run a dedicated man (or lady), he could understand why most people tended to feel that way.

Anders also thought most people were awfully boring. Fortunately, he did not listen to them enough to be shaped by dry and dreary standards.

Never in his life, though – not even during that hilarious stint in which the apostate decided he was a bandit – had there been as much jewelry as what currently glinted around this outlandish woman's neck. She glistened in ancient gold from head-to-toe: bangles, coined earrings, lip stud, dingy rings, a torque and medallion necklace that looked like it alone weighed five pounds. Dirt and sweat had burned through all trace of newly-mint shine, but under slots of direct sunlight through the overhead rafters, it was almost difficult to discern a woman beneath this jeweler's rack. Kohl smudged and stained chestnut skin, the tough complexion of one who spent many hours laboring outdoors. Her build was strong and its posture lilted slightly, an old alleycat, language robust. Messily bandana'd hair – like blackbird wings – had been gnarled by rain, dried by salt. Her eyes were blacker still, and though the paint around them sunk into shallow creases, you could tell they'd seen things far beyond the flooded harbor rocks below.

She also had an angry splinter of wood sticking straight through her middle thigh. You could discern this immediately, because it also seemed – despite oversized boots and unwashed, poorly-laced tunic – the lady didn't really care too much for pants.

Anders completely blew past the matter of expressing gratitude. "Who the hell… _how_ in the hell did this happen?"

All flares of aggression faded quickly from her glare when Lucky galloped off. The woman slumped against Red Candle's door frame, then, threatening arm dropping; her injured toe turned inwards, pressure limping upon it almost instantly. Blood droplets sprinkled the floor dust. She sighed and spat haggardly. "S' a long story, kit," would have to suffice as an explanation. Where once it had bellowed and rasped, her voice turned simpering and tired; words ran together, toothy, badly-pronounced. She winced and ignored how blue cloth and tendrils stuck to perspiring temples. It sounded like one of her back teeth had been broken a long time ago. "But, unlike some good people, I've got coin. Somewhere. What say you get started on fixing me and I'll fill you in on the important details?"

Remembering he was a doctor, Anders rushed forward with much authority, propped himself under one braceleted arm, and assisted her onto the clinic table.

"How did you manage to get here?" he asked, perplexed, not sure to fumble for forceps or ointments first. The grimacing rogue shifted her wounded thigh carefully onto a sanitary spot of hardwood. Frightening expression aside, exhaustion was evident in the heaviness of her posture, a well-worn and worn-out pain. Her tunic was not dirty, but soaked through with sweat and saltwater. You could smell cheap disinfectant and used gauze seeping from the places where flesh rumpled up. Its edges were starting to fray and blacken. "How can you walk? How are you even conscious…?"

The woman puffed weakly. She managed a smile, bleary with fatigue and the self-medication of strong liquor. Brass jangled at every joint and gold flashed deep within her mouth. "You'd be surprised what your body can do with enough incentive. I consider a sword-waving patrol regiment _phenomenal_ incentive when you look like me. Um – and while we're on the subject…" One eye wrinkled at him, thick with runny paint. There was a ghost of familiarity in the tinkle of dark metal and fickleness he could not account for. "Nice elf docksman told me this place was shelter from the punitive hand of the law. Was he truthful, or ought I be more concerned than I am?"

Anders had an uncorked carafe in one hand and at least six bandage rolls tumbling about in the other. He snagged a pair of intimidating steel clippers with one index finger. The mage probably didn't look much better than his patient, having stomped around downtrodden slums all day, ponytail gone dusty and ragged – and he was now approaching her with a very nasty-looking cutting utensil. "I won't report you" might have and might not have been a comfort from someone whose current appearance was a toss-up between saintly surgeon and crack-brained psychotic. Impaled scallywags didn't have much room to be picky, however… and her physical agony must have been, all evidence to the contrary, unbearable. He dumped the materials in an empty chair and dragged it over. "I'm just amazed you're sitting up, speaking to me…"

The glittering lady swiped away a potion he'd been offering, and swigged it with one reckless, jocular swing of her arm. It went down with a cold knock to every rib. She came up wearing another pain-skewed grin. "I am an amazing individual."

The healer's hands, long and animated, looked ungainly – but they moved very quickly. Within minutes, Anders had cut the protruding splinter in two sections, chucking excess aside and moving to consider a more manageable piece. It was stout and arid inside the grip of her leg. Fortunately for the rest of her, this menacing, makeshift stake had hit neatly between two major muscle groups; not only had it avoided crippling bone, but also puncturing an artery. Two days she had been like this, the survivor explained; their recent storm trapped her inside a shanty with few supplies and three other criminals, one of whom bundled it up as best he could. It was all sort of a blur, how exactly this came about. Someone's bitch had stuck her with it during the ass-end of a tavern brawl because she'd hit one sod or another upside his mug with a glass gin bottle. Made a hell of a mess. (The stab wound, not the smashed noggin.) Turned oddly yellowish a few hours afterwards. Hadn't started bleeding again until this morning, though – when she spotted sunlight outside, rolled off a sodden pallet, and walked herself here.

He selected a set of pliers, thought about it a while longer, then finally ended up poking and yanking at the thing until it came loose. Every centimeter was mopped up by a handful of cotton and vociferous curses. Her knuckles blanched around the edge of his operating table. Fresh and crusted red smeared into knotholes; splotches had soaked the tall boot neck and glued everything together, pulling irritably when Anders rolled it away. He'd procured a bit of bark to keep her teeth from chipping but she ended up biting through it five minutes in, anyway. By the time they were through with the removal – rotating between liquid sedatives, freezing palms and maniacal clippers – her nerves had been so confused that she barely felt a single stitch.

He snapped a length of horsehair and wiped the needle clean in a tuft of unused dressing. "Well, you're patched up nicely, but there's some moderate structural damage," the apostate informed her, not sounding altogether concerned about what your standard pirate might've found to be an intimidating medical term. "It might fix itself, given five or six months. But I'm going to use magic to heal it. Unless you have a problem with that."

"Me?" the swashbuckler drawled back, lying shoulders-flat across his table – and if she hadn't been drugged out-of-her-mind earlier, she certainly was now. It was hard to tell which had more effect: medicinal herbs, booze or simply the peculiar way she spoke. Her other leg was swinging over the side like a little girl's. "No. Zap it. Freeze it. Hell, light it on fire. I'm just peaches, doctor."

"That's good," Anders replied, because by the time she'd said so, he already had; frost cracked off his finger nails and fogged the buckles of both coat sleeves. The buccaneer gave one good shiver but that was all.

"Did I mention how appreciative I am of this very important service? Because I really, truly am," she mumbled, tongue lazy, piceous eyes filmed. The bandana was bunched into a knot at the crown of her head. "I'm even going to tip you extra. Don't look at me that way – I am! Soon as I get my payout from my last job. Maybe I'll just kill Lucky and take his. How much does a spitted leg set a girl back these days, anyway?"

The mage snorted his skepticism – "I'll make up for it later" was a tale he'd heard (and given) plenty of times before. "A lot more than I'm guessing you have if you're knocking on my door. But this is a charity clinic. Pay what you can afford to pay me. Though I never say no to donations."

"Aren't you an angel of mercy? OUCH." He upturned an entire vial of antiseptic onto the tightly-sewed laceration, skin turning ferocious purple. It bubbled for a few minutes before the apostate moved to wrap everything snugly up. Still looked gruesome – still painful, inspiring horrendous images of how such an injury had been inflicted – but notably less festering. Another three days and the whole appendage might've had to come off on account of this mean-spirited splinter, sawed right to the hip. (There was a First Mate Pegleg joke somewhere in that observation, but considering how much of an episode amputations always were, he reined it in.)

Anders wound the length of bandage around his forearm, stuck one end down, and quickly bound her limb from knee to – well, just about as close as he dared to get to a drunken pirate's underthings. It was generally a risky business, tarrying around pirate underthings. Some of them kept knives down there. Up there, even. You never knew.

"_I find that difficult to believe,"_ Justice, who had been silent enough to let his host work, couldn't resist digging a criticism. To this, the abomination gave an inscrutable little mental laugh – one that clearly disturbed his spirit guest more than he'd admit.

"Thank you for chasing that bruiser away, I forgot to mention." He reached for a band of tape to secure the dressing. "Not too unusual for them to be here. But I can't believe they'd hound me so fast after the storm. Sort of a dismal comment on humanity, isn't it..."

"Oh, that." One wink – indolent and utterly unashamed. "It was my pleasure, pretty."

Anders stopped short with a handful of cotton and his knuckles stained in blood.

"Maker's ass, it can't really be."

"What? What?" She lunged worriedly halfway off the table, upper body bent, straining to see. "Did something start spurting?"

The mage was staring hard at her from his rickety chair, rust eyes narrow, calf in both his hands. He did not smile or flinch. It looked as though he was trying to discern a map from the faint, dirty lines in her face. "I have to ask. You can't be – _Isabela_? Captain Isabela? Of _The Siren's Call_? You are, aren't you? Hah! Aren't you?"

This name resonated. She dropped all traces of humor or concern and propped up on both elbows. It was an odd bolt of severity in the dry, empty hospital air. They stared. "Shit. Should I know you?"

Anders thought about this, tapped his chin, and still wasn't sure of the answer.

"We had sex several times," he offered – neutral and pleasant as a nurse with good bedside manners.

The woman who suddenly began to make sense as Captain Isabela sat up. One gloved, jaded hand rubbed at the back of her neck. "Tell me there isn't a child."

If there had been any doubts before, that statement – and that scraggled, rough-edged gesture –packaged them up and sent them packing.

It had been about ten years.

* * *

_Ten years was longer than it felt like._

Ten years ago had seen Anders, shaky and amateur, act his way out of bondage. He'd faked insanity – made himself chatter, reel, vomit and faint – for one chance. Once chance out of this lightless hellhole was all he needed. There was no genuine plan in-place; the captive healer simply knew he needed to make that opportunity, _make_ that leeway, for freedom. If he could be convincing enough, someone would take pity. If he could talk his way down into the infirmary, hinge on the lip of death, then he could slip away from this prison. If he could find a long stretch of ground on which to run, they would never be able to catch him. Not this time. This time, he was going to run so hard and so fast, those metal-clad sentries at their college gates would barely see him – not before it was much too late. He was going to stab a doctor in the face with their own surgical instrument, kick out one of those green glass windows with the fragile panes, and fall two stories to soft earth. He was going to sprint into the tall pines where no one could see him and never stop. Before anyone could sound an alarm or put words to their thoughts, he was going to leave this place in a bad memory, and vanish right into the country wilds.

He did it once. He could do it again.

And again.

And again.

_Six times again_, to be exact, but those valiant attempts were quite some time in the future from where he stood then.

The second instance in which Anders escaped Kinloch Hold, he hadn't been prematurely caught by town guards or mage-hunters or lucky templar patrols bumbling down a country road. He hadn't scattered his hopes among Ferelden backwoods in a fitful attempt to disappear, head full of half-cocked ideas that this city-born child could live as a magical hermit for the foreseeable future. He had made it all the way to Denerim, in fact, convinced by the astute observation that fugitives hide best in throngs of likeminded people. The apostate carried nothing but one slim set of working clothes on his back and two silvers left after a bumpy carriage train from Lothering. He had stepped onto a cobblestone loading yard with empty hands and a sense of mute amazement at having come – locked into a tower sill for all his young life – so very, very far.

He'd venture back here some months later, dogged mad by templars, of a mind to crush his phylactery. But for now, the place his country crowned from was very new. And it was astonishing.

This astonishment had lasted not weeks, not days, but hours – just until Anders's stomach started growling its hollowness. Hunger was a remarkable pessimist. Destitution occurred to him while sitting on a marbled bridge during a glorious sunset – a pink-orange-purple sunset, one of the _really_ good ones, warm weather mildly dancing against polished white stone, the kind of light you never see over that depthless blue of Lake Calenhad. His legs had been dangling over the banister and mouth turned slackly towards castle curtain walls spearing fierce yellow heaven. It was under these lean clouds of city beauty, rough northern civilization, the reality of his situation struck. Anders realized that, unless he found some source of income in fairly short order, he would starve to death beneath this humbling Denerim sky. Either that, or be driven into a Chantry for aid… which was, he admitted, the far less desirable option. They'd catch him and send him south in a heartbeat. There were doubts circling many things in this granite and straw metropolis, but none about the final result of waving soup bowls under priestess noses.

'_Andraste's girdle, Anders – you're a _mage_,'_ his inner realist cried. _'This was a terrible idea! How am I to pay for anything – to get an _actual_ job? I've been in that damn Tower my whole life. What practical skills do I have?' _

At least in the forests of this country he could hunt (badly, mind you) or boil edible plants. Here, there was nothing to fill his thinning gut but coin. When you'd been coached in only one art since childhood, however – a fear-inspiring, highly illegal and extremely noticeable art – the prospects of jumping into peasant workforces weren't grand. Manual labor did not seem a likely field for scrawny, underfed mages. Actually, sans magic, the list of things this man truly excelled at seemed confidence-killing small. Insignificant, really. He could not cook, keep books, herd sheep, break horses. He could not teach, write poetry, paint shutters or fix chairs. Anders didn't have enough muscle to spare for milling logs, mining ore or shipping crates; he _certainly_ did not have the body for becoming an estate's new favorite housekeeper. What experience did he even have?

The runaway chuffed. _'Too bad I can't get gold for—'_

And then a light seemed to click on behind his eyes.

"I am a _genius_," Anders decided, shoved hands into pockets, and whistled his way to _The Pearl of Denerim_.

And that, of course, is where Isabela came in.

* * *

Ten years later, here she'd washed up again: sitting on the operating table in his clinic, bloody splinters cast onto the floor, eyes slender and trying to determine whether or not he was truthful or absolutely bonkers.

"Andraste's tits, I can't believe this," the mage cussed, chair scooting backwards, palm heel to brow. He wasn't sure if that cuss had been happy or not – Anders was, however, quite sure he sounded as flabbergasted as the feathery healer really was. Isabela had been staring at him cautiously for the past five minutes since she heard her name in this dim and dust-moted light. Her leg kept oozing; her calculating gaze was narrow and sidelong. He couldn't contain the revelation. "What are the chances you'd be all the way out here – after all these years – come strolling out of legend and into my shitty hospital?"

"Yes, funny! The fates are strange, mysterious beings!" she agreed, sliding both feet towards the floor. Then, more serious – and, perhaps, prepared to become seriously disturbed – the pirate's smile faded into impatience. "Now please tell me who in the hells you are."

Anders couldn't say he was offended or surprised she didn't remember him. Here, crutched up and glancing suspiciously within his offices, was a walking fisherman's tale from a hundred other port towns; how many boys like him must she have smuggled away from their woes? How many shackled people had she freed? Actually – considering the liberal way swashbucklers tended to drink, brag and… well, swash about – spouting their tales of glory or beneficence, it was probably better this one didn't recall his face. Changed though it was.

Still, he decided – considering her bleeding limb was currently being held together by his magic and bandages – the apostate didn't see any harm in trying. "Do you remember a place called _The Pearl of Denerim_?"

"Remember it?" she snorted, ten fingers gripping the furniture edge. Isabela began to test her weight on both shoes with varying success. One side of ebon hair was glistening dust; the other had been sweating, rumpled, pressed against sanded wood. "Give me a bit of credit. 'Remember it,' he asks me! I'll have you know I am quite partial to that fine establishment. And I can't say I've ever seen you there." A glare. She hopped a bit when an unexpected bolt of pain snatched at the injured muscle. "Don't tell me some yarn about me being saucy and three-sheets-to-the-wind, either, because I would've remembered. I remember everything when I'm drunk…"

"Then you'll surely remember laying over there on the way to Alamar – maybe six, seven years ago? Terrible storm. Smashed sail, landed on one of your boatswains? Had to stop for repair and pay for the funeral…? You were awfully annoyed about it," he noted, studying his nails, willing down the smile as Isabela's look dilated. You could almost hear the little mechanisms clinking and whistling inside her brainpan.

"I might recall that… _vaguely_." The woman was still pinning him with an exacting and mistrustful glance. Maybe she thought he was going to ask her for money. (Hell – and maybe he should. Given her reputation over these past seasons, someone crewed on the fearsome _Siren's Call_ couldn't be worn too bare in their pocketbooks. Maker's ass, you could probably pawn the clinking rack of jewelry she'd come with and buy a better house than this one! Huh. Come to think of it, what on earth was this woman doing crawling down here with the rats and mossy basements instead of pouncing high upon some dirty merchant's throat?)

Anders handed her another tumbler of diluted belladonna juice for the pain. She jerked it away from him and sniffed.

"So I don't suppose you recall," he wondered – a note of nonchalant finality – relishing in the flippant attitude of this story and the certainty of being right. The mage polished his tools and set them neatly back on the shelf. Sinister eyes watched his back with skepticism… and a growing realization. "On a dark and stormy night, staying at _The Pearl of Denerim_, one very particular companion lifting a keyring off your buckles and catching a ride in your cargo hold?"

She spat out all the medicine.

"Pretty?" Isabela choked, sounding strangled – and then, not knowing what else to make of it, the captain then threw both hands wide in celebration. "You're here!"

* * *

_The first thing Captain _Siren's Call_ had said to Anders was: "I'll take that silly knife-ear frown downstairs, the beauteous strumpet with all the tattoos, and how about blondie here wraps things up?" _

It wasn't really _to_ him, actually. But she'd pointed at the apostate – who'd been wearing nothing but some highly uncomfortable trousers at the time – and tossed him a wink and a gold coin. The sovereign's flat face stared contentedly up from his palm, glossy and new. It was the largest amount of money he'd held in months. She'd thrown it like nothing. _"Advance payment! Split it with your friends! More where that came from if you don't bore me to sleep,"_ the pirate promised, then cantered sloppily upstairs with a stomach sloshing full on cheap beer. She had been a little lither and smoother back then. Her face was younger, not as sun-scarred; her messy mane had been browner than black; her liver was (marginally) cleaner. But she was still unmistakably herself. He remembered. It would have been hard to forget.

The second thing Isabela said to Anders, some days later in the dark of a rocking ship, had been: _"Pretty, you're here!"_

She'd cried it out with a scimitar at one hip and a smile on her face. The seafaring woman was bold, only somewhat tipsy, and fresh from her hammock. She was aggressive and thundering; friendly with a distinct bully's bite. She was larger-than-life. She was beaming down at the dismayed little runaway on her cargo hold floor, his face covered in dirt.

Her oversized boot had slammed down on the crate he'd just pried open. There was a butter knife in one of his hands and a broken lock in the other.

They stared at each other in silence – threatening teeth, mannish posture, spooked copper eyes. His cheeks and fair hair were covered in black soot. He crouched there frozen for several moments in the belly of a cutthroat's galleon, mouth slack, rather horrified.

"Dear me," Anders had said, voice cracking, equipped with nothing but a dull eating blade and his most charming grin. "This is embarrassing."

"Andrew! It was Andrew, wasn't it? Something like that. Hardly matters. What an occasion this is!" Leaving him no room to correct her or spring away – for there was nowhere really to spring, twelve hours outbound to rocky Brandel's Reach – she leant forward, menacing. Sailors' footsteps hammered overhead as they attended to duties; boards creaked loudly; wind scraped sails, churning their ocean trail. You could only wonder how many sharks and other fiends were following now. Barnacles sutured the other side of this deck, ribbon fishes clung fast, bubbles roared beneath a smarting bow. That frightfully sharp weapon glinted under meager candlelight. He could see all the way up to her… "Never expected to see you again – and so soon! You must have missed me something fierce, sweet thing. But if you've come to sweep me off my feet, I must regrettably inform you that my only mistress is Old Lady Blue out there. She's a swell old chum, she is. I could introduce you… real personal-like, if you please." There was a dangerous flicker in blurry, brackish eyes. An elbow perched atop one bruised knee. "Right after you tell me _why_ you're here. And what in the world you're doing with all my fine Antivan cheeses."

An empty water bottle – very recently drunk – was rolling about somewhere behind him. Her stare looked like fresh-minted spurs. "Andrew" swallowed a dry mouthful of air.

"I am… stowing away, sadly," he sighed, a ridiculous thing to be truthful about – but it wasn't as if there were any better excuses. She watched the repentant apostate (and one-time prostitute) cast his gaze theatrically to her flagship floor. "Forced into a life of crime by my unfortunate birth and bitter occupation, no doubt. I probably couldn't bear the shame of what I was doing anymore, or some similarly heartrending excuse… so I turned to theft and trespassing to escape. Likely am half-starved and desperate. Quite possibly was abused. Or at the very least unloved as a child. You see, it's really a very tragic set of circumstances." A hopeless story… followed by an equally hopeless gesture to the food goods box. "And I'm hungry."

She studied him a few more minutes – perfectly poised, more acidic than toxin – in which Anders sincerely thought he was going to die by the hand of a brawny, voluptuous woman calling him _Andrew_.

Then the captain cocked her head, and collapsed into laughter. It rang boisterous and brilliant through the hollow gut of ship. Bushy hair tumbled; canines flashed; her throat, strong and unafraid, tilted skywards. She laughed for a long time. He was a little put out.

"Boil my garters! You filthy little spell-slinger, you. Knocked me out for a wink and nabbed my keys, did you! Hah! Hah-hah! And all this time I was wondering where they went to. Then I come down here, find you nibbling up my reserves, gnashing for blood as I was – what? Thinking you're up to no good for the constabulatory. Runaway prostitute! Skedaddling mage-boy! That's precious," Isabela blurted, bending over to breathe, clapping the scabbard still glistening perilously at one side. Then, quite suddenly, Captain _Siren's Call_ thumped to sit on the crate she'd once stepped on. It clattered enough to make Anders jump upright. One of her powerful legs swung over its partner, and the attached foot tapped, murky gaze leveling at him like a poor 'ickle thing. "Twinkle-fingers," the rogue tutted. He didn't approach her. "Having been on the lamb myself a time or two, I appreciate your effort… hiding here in the muck and wine barrels. It's a classic routine. But really. Loverly, darling – if all you wanted was a ride on my nice boat," she sighed, "you had only to sidle up and ask nicely."

"Yes," he acknowledged, an exhale, alarmingly pleasant considering the current situation. His tunic had been spotless at some point. Now it was a bleached, threadbare grey. "But I'm going to Alamar and I don't have any money."

The pirate rolled her eyes, chin pressed neatly into a hand. She took a long and lascivious look. Then Captain Isabela simply waved him forward, patient, patting the box-turned throne. Anders edged over and gingerly sat. Her clothes still smelled like the incense at Madame Sanga's most expensive backrooms. "Chickadee, Alamar isn't _that_ far off, you know. I am _sure_ we can work something out." She grabbed his face like a fussing nanny… and wiped the grime on her blouse. "Right after we get you a washing cloth, that is. You look like someone's old sock."

The mage's optimism was guarded. His hair, less wheat in color now than grunge, itched at the neck beneath. "Do you mean it?"

"Sure. My heart's black, pretty – doesn't mean it isn't there," she slurred, unclipping a canteen from her hip, taking a pull and thrusting it at him. He sipped. It tasted like rum mixed with cider, sweet enough to hurt. "I think it's rotten what they do to folk like you."

"Well, thank you."

The woman took back her alcohol and swirled it. "You are most welcome. And don't you worry. I'm plenty good enough a captain not to shake for those bad luck tales. Matter-of-fact, I've had your people on my ship before. Apostates, that is. Not prostitutes. Aprost… Apostitutes…" Snickers echoed into the half-drained tin. Anders thought it was a terrible joke, but beggars can't be choosers, after all. He managed a chuckle. All these years, and it had been a lesson learned: whatever the time, weather or mood, you could never really tell how drunk Isabela was.

"Have to hide you from the men, of course," she added, frowning, all business again. "They'd skin my ass alive and chop me out for chum 'f anyone knew I was keeping a mage onboard. And such a many-talented one, besides." Something occurred to her. "Ooh! Does this mean I have my very own cabin boy?" the swashbuckler asked, swiveling around on her crate, firewood eyes lit up like a magpie in Orlais. "I've always wanted a cabin boy!"

"I think I prefer the term 'companion,'" he noted with a sniff.

"What about 'bed-warmer?' 'Special bunkmate?' 'Personal stress management assistant?'"

"The last one. I like the last one."

"Then it's settled. Now put this on and look like a rug," she suggested, yanked a tarp from its pegs – and the next thing Anders knew, he was leaping off a ladder onto the bleak ash stone of Brandel's Reach.

* * *

The stones in Kirkwall were yellow and sand, not pale Fereldan white; Captain Isabela is burnished and world-weary; this mage hasn't been a carefree runner in a long time… but with the smell of ocean and a broadening sun overhead, not so much has changed.

Or, at the very least, her language hadn't.

"Maker spank me raw if I ever thought I'd see you again!" the scallywag shouted, raspy exclamation caught between snorting laughter and surprise, attempts to stand forgotten. Her face and posture were slumped with pleased but somehow humorous shock. Medicinal liquid shimmered across the cabinets where she'd spurted it. There was no move to clean or readjust. Justice bristled at all the vile imagery their conversation had dredged up in his host's mind. "Figured someone collared, roped and dropped you years ago!"

"You know—" Anders grinned. "_Likewise_."

"Then you made it out for yourself, after all! And you're a _doctor_," she noted, winking, a mothering bit of praise. The medallions jinked at her ears. Stitched skin continued to ooze beneath gauze, liniment and horse hair. "I'm so proud of you, pretty."

"What about you? What are you doing in Kirkwall?" Anders asked, scratching his head. He tugged a rag out of his belt loop and made to wipe up her mess: blood, oak shards and spittle, all. She left a lot of them. It was an essential piece of her urban myth. "I figured all these Chantry tariffs would keep smart opportunists like yourself well enough away. So long as Meredith is in-seat, that its. Maker, you're exactly the same as I remember," the healer mused, and would've been lying had he claimed this didn't make him happy. He considered her with a smile, cloth in one hand. "Save you look different. Good, but different."

"You, too, pretty! Skinner than I recall, but I was drunk most of the time, and hey – who's perfect?" She said so with leg knotted up in cotton and black hair wafting around her head. Anders stopped long enough to shake her hand. It was brutish, genuine and a little too loose. _Fitting_. She still emitted that same aroma of cooked apples, oil and liquor. "Sorry to say my being in Kirkwall isn't a matter of business. I'm beached here, as it is… currently without ship. Hence the pathetic and peasantish state of affairs I'm in. And the minor health disaster. But this – this has made me feel a little better about it. Truly glad to see you," she promised, thumping him, warm without being familiar. This maleficar was nothing more than a short footnote in her ruthless and infamous past, to be sure, but that didn't spoil the sentiment. He felt like it was true. "And how sweet of you not to call out my arse dimples, because I'm fair sure they're a new development."

"Didn't see a one," Anders swore.

"_That is a lie. You counted at least three." _But he stepped on Justice's toes before the spirit, blissfully silent as they both listened to her speak, could finish. She patted his head like one might a tot.

"You're a good boy, you are. Isn't that something? Running into each other halfway to Antiva – all the way up here. Beats all."

The mage chuffed. It was a comment made in jest, but there were real tones of frustration there. "Yeah, and the longer I stay, the more I think I ought've just joined on with your crew."

"You? Oh, no. No offense, love; some's just cut to be sailors and some isn't. I'd have gotten you killed years ago. But listen," she decided, slowly rising, making certain her heel could hold the weight. The pirate's wince fought down any lasting tingles of discomfort; healing poultices soothed whatever remained. He caught her forearm and helped pull the captain upright. "I'm usually laid up either at _The Hanged Man_ or _Blooming Rose_ these days. I can't pay you now, but I will. Til' then, you need anything – you have any more trouble with Lucky and his lot, pretty – you drop me a note there. Isabela will take care of you. Soon as I get this damned leg healed up."

"Sounds like a bargain. Although." He tapped his lip. "I never _did_ repay you for that ride…"

She brightened. "True! Then we'll call it even, and you consider that offer my honest gratitude. And besides that, let's – what?" It took her a few seconds of thinking. "Go get pissed together, or have dinner… or something. You know, do what old friends do! When I can walk nice and attractive again, that is."

"Can you make it-"

The brigand cut this question off, wiggling her arm away from his fingers even as she did so. "Made it down here on my lonesome, didn't I? Things are leagues improved since then! Besides, kit, I don't think you'd do to be seen stutting on into my neighborhood. Too rough over there for you," she said – gently, though it might bruise his feelings. "And too many lawman raids."

"Well, take these," he added, handing two vials of henbane wrapped in fresh bandage. "Make sure to keep the wound clean as you can. Stay away from the harbor, too; might stoke infection. If it starts to smell funny or itches, don't wait to come back. I'll… you know. Be here."

"Less the templars come," she joked through the sting; gave him a pinch in the ribs.

Anders agreed and limped her over to his door. "Unless the templars come. In which case, I'll be in the Gallows. In which case, I'll be dead!"

"And then I won't owe you any money," Isaebla concluded, a little mistily. She managed a lopsided smile. "G'day and thank you, then, lovely."

"Ta."

They peered at each other for another minute in the warehouse threshold, trying to believe it, not quite able to. Anders opened the door. Two sets of brown eyes stared, different shades in this musty light. The captain didn't say anything. She just started laughing.

She was still laughing when the pirate turned around and left. No rhyme, no reason. Certainly no explanation. She simply couldn't not. And so she laughed herself, limping, all the way down the sodden Darktown street.

"Well, fuck me blind," Anders noted, bemused at the coincidence, and went back to mopping the hospital floor.

Rain in Kirkwall was brutal, destructive and darkening. But there were things to be gained in the small spring mornings that followed all storms – and sometimes strange riches washed in with the tide.


End file.
